Bite
by That Girl55
Summary: He couldn't die, not for real anyways. But, metaphorically speaking, he'd die for her in a heartbeat. -Michael has a sister, who's finally coming to stay with Lucy and Max and their vampire family. And then she meets David...is it possible to fall in love with someone, something, you'd never allow yourself to become?- Rewrite of my 2013 story No Rest for the Wicked.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! This is my attempt at a rewrite of my 2013 Lost Boys story, No Rest For the Wicked. It's currently still up if any of you would like to go back and reread the older version! Basically, I was rereading it and thought the bones were really good, but some editing and plot changes needed to be made. So I've decided to take it on again! Hopefully this goes well, I've got my fingers crossed that you all enjoy the rewrite as much as you did the original! xx.**

**So, I'm starting with the same background info as last time - Lucy agreed to Max's plan, and they're married. Michael and Lucy are full vampires, but Sam remains human.**

* * *

It was a god-awful decision for Taylor to hitchhike in July.

It really couldn't be helped, as she'd overslept and missed her flight after spending just a little longer than anticipated at the bar last night. She'd promised not to beat herself up too much over it, no matter what her mother or Michael said to her - it was her going-away party, and, for Christ's sakes, she was allowed to have some fun.

The rest of the Emerson family had gone on ahead of her, her mother abruptly packing their things and forcing them into the car the moment she found out about her husband's affair. It was a wonder Sam and Mike didn't have whiplash - within a matter of hours, their family had gone from whole to broken. But Taylor adapted quickly and well, she always had been that way, and opted to stay in Phoenix to finish up cosmetology school.

She'd only been separated from her brothers for two months, but, as time went on, letters from Michael, her twin, had more than dwindled. He went from sending her pages - records of his day, her family, and pictures of Nanook - to nothing, all in the span of just a few weeks. As Michael's letters stopped coming, Sam started to write her fervently, his letters urging her to come to Santa Carla under the guise that it was just 'so fun here,' and he 'couldn't wait to share it' with her. Then, her mother hadn't called in three weeks, except to mail a copy of the airline ticket.

Something stunk about Santa Carla, and hesitant as Taylor was to leave her life in Phoenix behind, she was anxious to be with her family. She wasn't sure if it was nerves, anger, or some kind of sixth sense, but her stomach ached with unease.

On the road beside her, cars zoomed past, but no one had picked her up for miles. Luckily, the flight she'd missed had been at 6:45am, and her last ride had been an exceptionally fast driver - the sun was just beginning to set, and she was already in Fresno County. She was additionally thankful that she'd had the idea to mail her belongings ahead, as an oversized tote was easier to manage while walking than a full-sized suitcase. She'd chosen her flimsy sandals so she could take them off on the plane, not so she could walk along the highway in them, and they were starting to make her feet very, very sore.

Like a literal beacon of light in the distance, she spotted a payphone up ahead - the first roadside one she'd seen in miles. Rejuvenated, she hurried towards it.

Taylor had called earlier in the day from a car phone, staring at the number Sam had printed at the bottom of the last letter. The address, too, was different - they'd moved out of Grandpa's house, it seemed, and in with Mom's new husband.

Seriously, what woman would get re-married without her only daughter present? It made Taylor's blood boil to think of it - seriously, Taylor hadn't even met him, and now this Max was her new step-father? The whole thing was strange, so unlike the mother she knew in Phoenix, but then again, that Lucy had been fooled and cheated on and left out to dry in the rain. Taylor knew that affairs took a toll on women, that they could drive them to make crazy and rash decisions - maybe Max was one of her mother's?

When she had called from the car phone, around noon or a little after, no one picked up. She'd left a message, telling her family that she'd missed her flight but she still planned to be in Santa Carla by that night, conveniently leaving out how she planned to get there. Taylor found it odd that there'd been no response yet, but, then again, her family had no way of reaching her.

She quickly dialed the unfamiliar number, mentally noting that she'd have to stop at a gas station soon and ask for directions to the address from Sam's letter. The line didn't even ring twice before a gruff voice answered.

"Taylor?" Michael huffed.

"Hello to you too, Mikey." Taylor rolled her eyes.

"Mom!" Mike yelled, angling his face away from the phone before turning back to speak into the receiver. "Where the hell are you?"

"I left a message a few hours ago. I missed the plane." Taylor reminded him. "I'm calling because I'm in the county, I'll be there in a few hours."

"Taylor Emerson, this is your Mother." Lucy's voice came over the line. "You don't have a car! How did you get here?"

"I walked some of it, I rode some of it..." Taylor swallowed, deliberately leaving out the word 'hitchhiking.' Her mom sounded so different, so much harsher, but maybe that's because she hadn't heard her voice in weeks.

On the other end of the line, Taylor could hear Lucy fuming. A male voice in the back piped up: "Relax, darling, what matters is that she's almost here now, and she's arrived safely." Taylor shuddered involuntarily - that must've been the infamous Max, listening in on their conversation.

"What are you near, Tay?" Michael sighed. "I'll come pick you up."

"That's not necessary - "

"Taylor."

"I'm near a Shell station in a little town called Turk." Taylor half smiled - at least, she figured, she'd get to see her brother finally.

"I'm on my way."


	2. Chapter 2

When Michael pulled up on his bike, Taylor was outside the gas station, sitting on the curb and twirling a red Twizzler around in her mouth. She had a book propped open on her lap, and if it weren't for the familiar copy of _Salem's Lot_, he never would've recognized her.

They'd both changed in the months apart.

Taylor had grown thinner and firmer at the same time. It was obvious she'd started attending those aerobics classes her friends in Phoenix had raved about, and also that she'd been eating less and less with Lucy not around to cook for her. Her hair was different as well, a side affect of her cosmetology teacher insisting that stylists needed to display the latest trends. It was not the mousy brown mane Michael remembered, the one that matched his - instead, her dark curls were intertwined with honey blonde, and her longer curls only emphasized her doe-like eyes.

He was not like she remembered either, he knew. His five o'clock shadow seemed perpetual and his face was so much more angular now, harsher. Vampirism had made him stoic, hard, but she didn't know that yet. Michael rose from the bike slowly; the sun was going down, yet a sliver of it hung just above the horizon. It wouldn't hurt him, there was too little light for that, but it still kept him tired, weak. He wouldn't normally wake this early, but he'd been tense after his mother got Taylor's message. She'd always been adventurous, wild, and carefree - but hitchhiking across state lines? His sister's possible insanity was beginning to worry him, and Michael began to fear this would be a regular thing.

However, with his family, it wasn't like Taylor had to be too worried about her safety. They were the scariest thing in Santa Carla.

"Mike," Taylor said his name, a huge smile crossing her face, and stuck a finger in her book to mark the page before getting up to hug him. She breathed in his scent as she did, noting that he at least smelled the same as she remembered, like their old family home in Phoenix. "I've really missed you."

"I missed you too, Tay." He smiled at her, grabbing a Twizzler out of her hand and grinning as he took a bite.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, laughing at him. This felt good to her - right, and normal; it reminded her of life before Lucy found out, before she relocated her family in a rapid span of 48 hours.

Michael was smiling, but he didn't seem fully alright to Taylor. He looked just the slightest bit off, his cheeks were flushed and he was sweating. Instead of ushering her back onto the bike immediately, he returned to the curb where she was before, and took a seat.

"You picked a good time to call, we're only twenty minutes or so from the house." He brushed a hand across his forehead. "I think I need to catch you up on some stuff, Taylor, before we get back."

And this is where he would've told his sister that he - and her mother, and her stepfather, and soon-to-be her other brother - were vampires. He would've told her, if it was that easy. But Lucy and Max had forbidden him from sharing the secret with anyone, including, for the time being, his twin, so he focused on the simpler parts instead. Besides, if he had told her flat-out, she probably would've laughed in his face.

Instead, he gave her an overview of it all - their short stay with Grandpa, Lucy and Max's shotgun wedding, the move into the new house, Lucy and her father's new estrangement over the wedding, and, finally, Max's adopted sons - the Lost Boys.

"They're hard to explain," Michael shrugged, beginning to feel better now that the sun had fully disappeared. "You'll understand once you meet them. Sometimes they stay with us at the house, sometimes they don't."

"How many of them are there again?" Taylor's brows furrowed, wondering just how big this new house would be.

"Four guys, my age, and then a little kid, Laddie. There used to be another, a girl...But she's not here anymore. She left. Her name was Star."

Michael trailed off, and Taylor immediately understood what he was getting at. Twin telepathy.

Without pushing it further, Taylor gently guided Michael to his bike.

"Can I drive?" She gushed out, half wanting to try it out and half wanting to change the subject.

"Not a chance."


	3. Chapter 3

Taylor was exhausted when she arrived at the house. She'd woken up with a killer hangover more than twelve hours ago now, and, although it had faded, she still hadn't gotten anywhere near the amount of sleep she normally did. She stifled a yawn as she got off the bike, gazing up at the mansion in front of her.

It was safe to call it a mansion, actually, because the driveway was at least a quarter mile long and shrouded by trees and had an iron gate at the bottom, which usually remained open but could be closed for privacy - or protection. And it was so modern, much more than Taylor had anticipated. The outside was a stark white, with massive curved windows and wood accents. It reminded her of something Frank Lloyd Wright would've built and, briefly, Taylor wondered if he did. A Mercedes sat in the carport, the same bright white color as the house.

Michael must've left this part out while he was catching his sister up, the part where their mother had married one of the richest men Taylor had ever met - er, _would_ meet.

"Jesus, Michael." She gazed up at it. "This is insane."

"He's usually not this ostentatious," Michael shrugged. "But, big house for a big family, I guess."

Taylor flinched at the 'family,' but tried her best not to show it. Moments later, Sam came running out of the house towards her, his button-down shirt flapping in the sea breeze.

"Tay!" He threw himself at his older sister, nearly knocking her down seeing as they were just the same height.

Taylor hugged him just as tightly as she had Michael, finding the same thing - they both smelled like home, like Phoenix. It made her wish for things she knew she could never have back.

"Oh my God!" She exclaimed. "You've gotten so tall, Sammy."

Michael smiled at the two of them, his eyes darting between them and the rising moon. It was getting later, he was getting hungrier.

Sam and Taylor continued to chatter, until Michael caught his younger brother's eye.

"C'mon, I want to show you the house!" Sam smiled at his sister, pulling her inside while casting Michael a cautious glance. "Mike probably wants to catch up with his friends."

"Oh," Taylor said softly, not wanting to show her disappointment that her brother seemed less than excited to see her. "Max's kids? The ones you told me about?"

"Yeah," He nodded.

"You told her abo - " Sam began excitedly, but Mike quickly cut him off.

"About Max having what he calls adopted sons, who sometimes stay with us. Yeah, I mentioned it." Taylor's brows furrowed at Mike's response, and he knew he'd have to come up with something better than that. "I thought she'd want to know in case she saw them hanging around the house. Anyways, I'm off."

Michael got back on his bike and sped away, Taylor glancing after him before returning her attentions to her remaining brother. He could sense her disappointment.

"I'm not going to lie to you," She shrugged. "I was kind of expecting a welcome home party or some bullshit thing like that. Not that I really wanted one, you know. It's just I haven't seen you guys in months, it would've been nice to have everyone together on my first night here."

"They're all at the boardwalk," Sam huffed, kicking a rock with his shoe.

"The boardwalk?" Taylor questioned.

"Yeah, that's where they all go at night. Max has a video store down there, and Mom helps him out with it a lot. Mike and the boys just get into trouble, mostly, but it's where everyone goes to hang out."

Taylor smiled softly, misconstruing his anger for disappointment. Sam had never had much luck with friends back in Phoenix, and she'd figured Santa Carla had been no different. She thought that, while Lucy had been busy with her new husband and Michael had been raising hell with his friends and falling for some hippie, Sam had been sitting at home, lonely and friendless all summer.

"Do you want to go to the boardwalk, Sam?" She urged him. "I haven't eaten dinner yet, so we can grab some food down there and check out some of the rides. Maybe they have an arcade, like back in Phoenix?"

Sam's heart lightened at her proposal, but he shook his head. He would take her to the boardwalk during the day, when his family and whatever else was lurking around Santa Carla was sleeping, and it was safe.

"Alright," Taylor said softly, knowing better than to push him. "So, can you show me to my room first, then to the fridge? I'm starving!"

Sam gulped.

"Your room is the easy part, but we, ah, we don't really have any food. I'll order us pizza or something - Chinese?"

"Either is good!" Taylor told him. "But you remember - "

"No meat," Sam smiled at her. "Of course."

Taylor had been a vegetarian for as long as she could remember. She wasn't quite sure why, but the thought of biting down on something that was once alive made her stomach churn. Half the time she had a hard time even looking at raw meat, avoiding those isles in the grocery stores and steering clear of the deli. The sight of those chicken breasts, fattened up artificially with red, bloody veins glowing under pink-white skin, once made her race to the customer bathroom to empty her stomach.

"Thanks, Sammy."

He nodded at her, gesturing towards a modern, freestanding stairwell that was the focal point of the home's entryway. "Your room is upstairs, at the end of the hall on the left. You can't miss it because all of your boxes are in it. I'll order the food while you get comfy."

Grateful not to be in this strange, new house alone on her first night, Taylor hurried upstairs to her room. Wooden doors adorned the walls on both sides, probably branching off to other bedrooms or a bathroom, but Taylor didn't want to open them in case she and Sam weren't the only ones home after all. The last thing she wanted was to walk in on Max and her mother in their bedroom.

Opening her bedroom door, Taylor found that Lucy had been exceptionally good to her - although this probably wasn't the master, it had to be the second-best room in the house. Pink shag carpet adorned the floor, and a wicker bed and two side tables were on a carpeted platform. On one side were two mirrored closet doors and a small bathroom, and on the opposite was a large, curved picture window.

Taylor moved around boxes to cross the room to the window, peeking outside of it. She could see the lights from the boardwalk from here, although not very clearly. She watched as a delivery car began to pull up the long driveway, and turned around to walk downstairs and meet it.

But when Taylor spun around, the room was not as it had been when she walked in. The closet doors, which had been shut before, were cracked slightly, and Taylor took a step towards it, holding her breath. Maybe it was Nanook, who, to think of it, she hadn't seen since she entered the house. She walked forward just slightly more, and her question was answered.

A dark, shadowy figure leapt from the closet, and seemed to fly over to her from across the room.


	4. Chapter 4

Taylor's heart caught in her throat as she fought to scream, but all that came out was a scratchy, slow wail. Her back pressed against the picture window as whatever had come from her new closet bounded towards her - half leaping, half running.

And then the light from behind her caught the figure.

Bounding toward her, dressed in an oversized military jacket with long, straight hair that nearly covered his eyes, was a little boy. He grinned wildly at her surprise, and let out a low, deep growl that caused her eyebrows to furrow. She no longer had a reason to be scared - this was clearly Laddie, the little boy Mike had told her about - and yet she was still terrified.

"Laddie!" A deep voice snapped from her doorway. "No. This is Taylor."

Abruptly, Laddie's face seemed to shift from something of nightmares to a normal, exuberant little boy.

"I'm sorry," He apologized half-heartedly, walking towards Taylor and smiling up at her, one that seemed less threatening this time.

The man from the doorway watched their exchanged, mildly impressed that Taylor hadn't moved away as the creature that was threatening her only moments earlier moved in for a hug.

"Hi Laddie," She said, her voice betraying her and revealing her bewilderment.

"I didn't mean to scare you, I just didn't know who you were." He shrugged.

"It's okay, Sam just told me you were all down at the boardwalk. I didn't expect anyone else to be here." Taylor exclaimed, more to the figure in her doorway than the child apologizing at her waist.

Beneath her feet, the doorbell rang, causing her to jump momentarily. The man in the doorway smirked lightly.

"Laddie, go get a slice of pizza." He ordered, gently touching the kid's head as he rushed past him. "I'm David."

He moved into the moonlight, and Taylor could see the shock of his bleached hair against his slightly tanner skin, the hint of stubble gracing his jawline that looked much more appealing on him than it had earlier, on her brother. He was wearing a floor-length duster, as if he'd wandered straight out of a Western, but it did little to hide what was underneath. David's shoulders were broad, and he was handsome, despite not quite being the sun-kissed, surfer boy she expected to meet in Santa Carla.

"I'm Taylor," She said harshly, maybe a little more than intended. "Are you one of Max's 'sons?'"

The air quotes around sons was clearly necessary, as David scoffed at her.

"That's what he's calling us now?" He smirked. "Yeah, something like that."

He stared at Taylor for a moment, wordless, and seemed to size her up. Immediately, she felt chills run down her back, the hair on her arms begin to stand on end. She was both unnerved and enticed, all at once.

"David?" Sam's voice came from just outside the doorframe as he quickly walked into the room, both afraid of the head vampire and worried about his sister. Out of all the boys, David was the one who came here the least - so why he was he here now, alone in the room with Sam's unassuming sister? "I thought all of you went to the boardwalk."

David blinked for a moment, nearly, but not quite, caught off guard by the forcefulness of Sam's words. He'd never shown the slightest sign of aggression towards him before, not since his failed plan with the Frog brothers. After that, Sam retreated as far as he could, with them being 'family' and all.

"Laddie snuck off while we were _getting food._" David grinned, catching Taylor's eye as his teeth glinted in the moonlight. "I guess he wanted something else to eat."

Taylor swallowed silently. She knew men like this, men that fed off fear and submissiveness, and she was determined not to fall for them the same way she'd fallen for all the bad men back in Phoenix.

"Sam, is there a light switch in here?" She said matter-of-factly, passing David without so much as a glance and moving towards her brother, running her hand along the wall next to the doorway.

"Lucy got you a lamp," David laughed teasingly, walking over to where Taylor had previously stood and switching on the lamp that had been in the corner the whole time, that she'd blatantly missed.

Taylor felt her face flush, but raised her eyes to his - a successful attempt not to show her embarrassment.

"Thank you,"

David said nothing more, and didn't look at the siblings as he pushed past them, out of the room.

"Laddie downstairs? He needs to eat something other than pizza tonight."

Sam nodded, and David descended the stairs, calling for the child and exiting the house.

"Sam," Taylor said, turning towards her brother with a wide smile on her face. "Let's go to the boardwalk after we eat. It's not even that late yet, and it sounds like everyone's there. I want to see my family - plus, I need to be scouting for a job."

That feeling she'd had, when David was in the room with her alone, she wanted it back. The combination of arousal and fear and anticipation was a sharp addiction, and she wanted to feel it again as soon as she possibly could.

But Sam's answer came with a learned reluctance, and he refused to meet his sister's eyes as he nodded slightly. Was his sister just as bad off as Star, and all the other girls on the boardwalk, who let men like David use them? He didn't remember her being that way, but he hadn't always been the most observant, attentive brother. In Phoenix, he spent more time in front of the TV and at the mall than keeping an eye on her. That had always been Michael's job, but it seemed like he was severely slacking lately.

Maybe Taylor would see for herself tonight, Sam thought, just how different Mike has become.


	5. Chapter 5

**I started the story out with a T rating, but after this chapter it'll probably be changed to M. Some smut ahead - though sadly not with David :( **

* * *

Sam seethed, his eyes glancing angrily around the boardwalk. He'd walked away for five minutes - just five minutes - in search of a funnel cake for dessert and Taylor, who promised to wait by the carousel, had disappeared. He wondered if she'd gone off in search of Mom and Max's video store, or if maybe she'd caught sight of Michael and the boys and decided to go with them. At this point, Michael and the Lost Boys might've been the lesser of two evils.

He shuddered, not quite believing he was saying that about his own mother, and set off along the boardwalk, purposely avoiding the comic book shop he used to frequent. Max had eyes everywhere, he'd learned that very quickly.

* * *

Taylor stared up at the board, decorated with so many unfamiliar names and faces.

She'd started off by the carousel, waiting for Sam, but she'd seen him begin to chat with the girl serving him his funnel cake, and decided to give him some time to himself. Two months was long enough for Lucy to fall in love and remarry, but apparently not long enough for her youngest son to make some new friends. She thought about seeking out the video store and her mother, but decided to wait until Lucy came around to see her. Taylor hadn't spotted Michael anywhere either, but what she did see was the Santa Carla Missing Persons board.

There had to be at least thirty people on there, maybe more, and some of the posters were old enough to have had their edges peeled back by the breeze coming off the sea. When one looked faded enough, a new one would cover it up partially. Taylor had only been there five minutes, maybe less, but she'd seen enough to know that no two people were on there twice.

She'd been to beach towns before, ones with boardwalks like this, on vacations with her parents, and then with her friends as she got older. She knew these places were havens for runaways and grifters and awful people - but she'd never seen this before, never been able to scan the faces of so many victims all at once.

"What's caught your eye, beautiful?"

The owner of the voice had snuck up on her, more than David and Laddie had earlier, but it didn't invoke the same feral sense of fear and excitement. This time, she didn't even jump.

"This board," She gave him the obvious answer. "There's just so many people."

"Yeah," He scoffed stupidly. "Didn't you see the sign on the way into town? Santa Carla - murder capital of the world!"

"I must've missed that," Taylor was growing annoyed, until she turned to look at him.

The man beside her was a little older than her - just the way she liked them - and must've been in his mid- to late-twenties. He was conventionally attractive, with a soft golden tan and a mullet of blonde curls. He wore swim trunks with no shirt, despite the chill of the nighttime air, and his abs were perfectly sculpted.

Taylor's demeanor visibly changed - this man was no longer a nuisance, but a welcome distraction from her strange, absent family.

"Did your friends send you over here?" She said, a small, flirtatious smile on her face as she nodded towards a group of guys blatantly watching them, their looks and dress similar to the one standing in front of her.

"Kind of," He admitted. "I might've let it slip that I thought you were cute."

"If you hadn't snuck up on me," She came closer to him, pausing when they were just a few inches apart. "I probably would've thought you were cute, too."

He grinned at her, revealing rows of perfectly straight teeth, only slightly stained by red wine and cigarettes.

"We're headed to the dunes for a party, maybe you want to come?"

She laughed, taking his hand and turning to face the rest of the group.

"Wait, what's your name?"

"John," He smiled at her. "And you are?"

"Shannon."

As they walked away from the boardwalk, toward a bright, glowing bonfire, Taylor learned that they were tourists. John and his group of five or six others were from a land-locked town in California, and they'd taken a few weeks to come up here and try out surfing. Most of his friends were over it after the first day, but John swore he was a natural.

Taylor knew he was lying - about all of it. After what happened with her parents, she had a sixth sense for this thing. John probably lived in town, had surfed his whole life, and was spinning a tale so that he wouldn't have to say that he wanted this to be just a one-night thing.

"John," Taylor laughed at him. "I think you've misread me."

"Look Shan, if this wasn't my last night here I'd totally take you out on a real date, but - "

"John," She grabbed his face, suddenly serious as she brought it closer to hers, connecting their lips in a feverish kiss. "I want the same thing you want. Nothing more."

A stupid grin graced his face, the same one that he'd worn earlier when she'd agree to come to the more isolated dunes with him. She pulled him away from the fire, away from his friends, silently, luring him behind a dune a few yards away. With no one around, she pushed him into the sand, laughing at the look of surprise on his face.

She climbed into his chest, her sinewy legs pinning him down with a strength he hadn't anticipated, but excited him. She peeled off her concert tee to reveal she was wearing nothing underneath, and grabbed one of his hands, placing it directly onto her tit.

John moaned.

"It's actually Ken, by the way." He said gently, wondering if this would be the last straw, if this would make her leave him with blue balls.

"Taylor," She smiled, pulling down his surf shorts and grinning hungrily at how hard he was already. "Nice to meet you."


	6. Chapter 6

John - er, Ken - _liked_ this girl, really liked her, and he was excited for her to go down on him. Slowly, she was revealing how wild she was, and he knew that, once she had her mouth around his cock, she would do some crazy shit.

Unluckily for him, they never got that far.

A force from behind grabbed Taylor's curled hair, yanking her away from the surfer and throwing her backwards into the sand. At least, she figured, it was sand - it hurt less this way.

"What the hell!" She exclaimed, realizing she was staring at the backs of four boys - one of whom was her brother. "Michael?"

"Not now," He groaned at her, his voice a thousand times deeper and raspier than she remembered it being. "Go back to the boardwalk, Taylor."

But she didn't, and, within seconds, Michael seemed to forget about her presence all together, and the other boys seemed indifferent. All four of them had their eyes locked on Ken as he gazed up in silent fear.

Taylor sat herself up in the sand, arms crossed over her bare chest, and watched as the boys advanced on Ken. What the hell were they going to do to him, anyways? Maybe they were a gang or something?

But as they moved closer and closer, and Michael grew angrier, their faces started to change and shift. Her brother became unfamiliar to her, his cheekbones beginning to jut out of his skin and his nose becoming snout-like. He started to snarl - they all did - like some type of animal that she couldn't recognize.

Bats. Taylor swallowed. Her brother looked like a bat. They all did, even the ones that she hadn't really met yet. David was the most menacing by far. The closest to the bonfire, his features were backlit, and they gave him the appearance of something otherworldly, deadly.

It was he who pounced, in almost the exact same way that Laddie had when he surprised her by jumping out of her closet. He leapt at Ken, moving straight for the neck like an animal would to its prey. Taylor watched as his teeth, which had suddenly become elongated and sharper than she could imagine, sank into Ken's jugular.

She felt faint. She willed herself to move, but the only movement she could manage was to fall backwards into the sand, closing her eyes.

She heard David mutter something to the rest of the boys, about going to the bonfire 'to get' the rest of the party, and figured that, although she heard no footsteps, they walked away. The only thing she could hear was a dull slurping for several moments, and she figured David was tied up with - well, she didn't want to think about that.

This was her chance, and Taylor took it.

She found her feet quickly, kicked off her sandals, and started running for the boardwalk as quickly as she could manage - not an easy feat in dry sand. But the boys were distracted, and she was making good time. She was just about to touch the wooden stairs that led upward when she thudded into another body.

"Taylor? I was looking for...oh no." It was Sam, her baby brother, who had somehow been _living_ with these monsters for two months! But his eyes were locked somewhere past her shoulder, and Taylor shuddered to turn around.

Their faces had returned to normal, but their mouths were messy with blood. The Lost Boys, and her brother, were a few feet behind her, flanked out in some kind of half-circle, as if they were daring her to run.

"Jesus Michael," Taylor stuttered. "Sam said you were into some weird shit, but this..."

And then she hit the sand, not nearly as gently as she had earlier.

* * *

Paul had flown Taylor back to the house because it seemed like a better option than toting a passed-out girl around the boardwalk, and eventually trying to put her on the back of someone's motorcycle. Michael was still new to flying, and he was hesitant about doing it with Taylor in his arms, so he elected Paul, who was also the only one willing to let Sam drive his motorcycle back to Max's house.

"I'm going to hang behind," Michael said, glancing tentatively at the glowing sign of the video store in the distance. "I'll meet you all at home after I talk to Mom and Max."

The boys nodded in agreement, and Sam scowled. First, Michael was going to skip out on his younger brother, and now he wouldn't even be there for his twin? Vampirism had changed him, like it had changed Lucy and, he assumed, all of the boys. So far, Max had listened to his request not to be turned because of his age - he sure didn't want to be fifteen forever - but he knew eventually the day would come, and that terrified him. Would he be different too, colder and more careless, when he became a vampire?

Secretly, Sam hoped to run away before that time came, but he couldn't leave his family right when Taylor was just arriving to it. She was totally unaware, fully naive to what her family had become - at least, she had been until tonight.

Paul beat them all back to the house by ten minutes or so, and when the rest of the Lost Boys and Sam arrived, Taylor was already awake. She reclined on the living room couch, sipping from a glass of water. Surprisingly, Sam noticed she didn't look too frightened.

"I gave her a promise she'd remain bite-free." Paul smiled, looking directly at Sam and flashing his teeth.

"Who are you all?" Taylor said, her voice sounding just a little stronger than she felt.

"I'm Dwayne, and this is Marko." The tallest said, with a jut of his thumb towards the shortest one. "I think we're the only two you haven't yet met."

"Mike told me names," She sighed. "I just...I guess the right question would be, _what_ are you?"

The boys looked around the room, eyes locking with each other. All except for David, whose glare never left her face. Opening his mouth as he had before on the beach, she watched him transform.

"We're vampires," He growled, although in a way that was more challenging than menacing.

Taylor stared at him a moment, her eyes blank and glazed over, and then fainted again.


	7. Chapter 7

The world was dark still, but sounds and voices surrounded Taylor.

The front door opening. Then closing.

"Is she still out?" _Michael._

"She woke up for a bit, and then David changed on her and she was out again." _Sam._

The front door opening, then closing again.

"What the hell did you all _do_ to her?" A man's voice, one she didn't recognize. "Michael said you fed in front of her? Really, I thought I raised you boys better than that."

"She was with the surf nazis," Marko said, as if that was an excuse. "We didn't know it was her until..."

"Until Michael pulled her off one of them, _topless_." David snickered, emphasizing the last word. "She tried to run back up onto the boardwalk with nothing on her."

Although Taylor couldn't see Michael or her mother, she heard disappointed sighs from both of them. At some point, one of the boys must've put her shirt back on her.

"I thought I was running _for my fucking life, _excuse me if I didn't pause to get redressed. And besides, that's really the topic at hand here?" Taylor said, sitting up slowly as her vision came back.

She was surrounded by them, just as she imagined she'd be when she first go there - all of them, together in one room, sitting around and catching up. And now, now circumstances were so different.

The Lost Boys were all shockingly handsome, so much so that she was surprised she didn't see it earlier, on the beach. It wasn't just David - they were all masses of harsh lines and firm muscles, sharp jawlines and piercing eyes. Her brother, she recognized, was similar to them in that way too.

Max wasn't nearly as coldly handsome as them, but he had an air about him, one of self-assured confidence and, surprisingly, warmth. But Taylor had been here long enough now to sense that it was a false warmth, one that her mother similarly wore.

Lucy was so...different. Her hair was still cropped and at first glance she looked the same but there was something new about her, something shiny. Lucy had always been average, in the way that children always see their mother not as beautiful or ugly exactly but just as _Mom_. Now, her beauty was undeniable - the type that would turn heads as she walked. But her beauty, like the boy's, was sharp and dangerous.

Taylor deliberately did not look at her mother, the woman who hadn't called for three weeks, or managed to check her answering machine, or be around after her daughter had hitchhiked hundreds of miles for her. If she stared at Lucy too long, she'd start to cry, so she avoided her eyes.

"I want an explanation." Taylor glared first at Sam, angry that nothing was said earlier, then at Max - who had, presumably, made them all this way. "So you all are..._vampires?"_

"Not me," Sam piped up, clearly proud of the fact that he'd survived in this nest for so long and still remained human.

_'Obviously.'_ Marko mouthed to Paul, and Paul hit him on the shoulder jokingly. The boys were ignored.

"Sam's not a vampire yet, but the rest of us are." Max confirmed. "I'm Max, your mother's new husband."

Taylor was relieved that, at least, he hadn't referred to himself as her stepfather.

"Even that kid, Laddie? So when I saw him earlier, and he ran at me..." She looked at David for confirmation, and he nodded.

"But he's perfectly safe," Dwayne defended Laddie quickly, who was the only member of Taylor's new family not present at the moment. "He just didn't know who you were or what you were doing in his house."

"How did you become...this way?"

"It's kind of a love story," Marko teased, looking pointedly at Michael, who didn't bother to hide his pout. "Your brother over here fell for a girl who hung around with us, her name was Star. We met him, we liked him, and then Max met your mom there and hatched a plan so that we could all be - "

_"One big happy family!" _Max continued, beaming slightly as if this, all of this, had gone exactly to his plane.

"Star skipped town, of course, that's why you haven't met her." Michael continued. "She couldn't handle this...she didn't want it."

"She was a mistake," Max said in a tone that was both gentle and condescending at the same time. It almost dared you to cross him. "She didn't understand that what we gave her was a gift, and she treated it like a curse."

Taylor shuddered - it was a curse. Having to kill to survive; and not only to kill, but to torture. The Lost Boys didn't put their food out of their misery, no, the pain made it taste so much _better_. They drained their humans while they were still breathing, Taylor had seen it.

"I don't think I can be here." Taylor said abruptly, rising from her spot on the couch as quickly as she could, and rushing for the door to the back porch.

At first, no one followed her, and Taylor used the opportunity to lean over the edge of the railing and empty her stomach into the bushes below. She wondered, momentarily, if that Ken guy had slipped something in the beer she'd gotten from him - LSD, Molly, a hallucinogenic. Something that would explain this, without it meaning her family was totally lost.

But then Michael came out onto the back porch, alone.

"I've only been away for two months," Taylor sighed. "but it seems like it's been eons."

"It hasn't always been like this, Taylor." Michael sighed, sitting down next to her. "In the beginning, you're not a full vampire yet, you're a half. Back when I was a half, both Star and Laddie were too, and we were like you - we didn't understand, we didn't want to understand. We didn't want to kill, Taylor, not at first. So we didn't feed, and that kept us at half, and Sam met these guys down at the comic book store and the six of us came up with a plan to kill the head vampire, which would turn all the half vampires he'd made back to human. Except - "

"Except Max was the head vampire, and he'd already turned Mom."

"And Mom accepted it so easily, had already killed and everything. If we killed Max, we'd kill Mom, and so his plan just fell right into place. Then I fed shortly after that - it gets hard, you know, you get so hungry and everything becomes so confused. Then Laddie gave in, and Mom and Max got married and bought this place. It was really hard to live with Grandpa after everything, because he hates vampires, so Mom moved us out as fast as she could."

"Michael," Taylor said softly. "What happened with Star?"

For a moment, he was silent.

"She just up and left one day." He sighed. "David got Laddie because he thought it would be easy to use him to get her to feed. Like maybe if she saw this little kid doing it, she'd do it too. But then she wouldn't let Laddie feed and the two of them went hungry for so long, before I had even met them. It's hard to be hungry for that long, it wears you down. Sometimes, I think maybe she just lost her mind, and other times I think she was too proud to give into it in front of all of us, that if she was going to feed, she was going to do it on her own."

"I'm sorry, Michael. I can tell she meant something to you."

"Yeah, well, obviously I didn't mean something to her." He huffed. "Anyways, there's something you should know."

Taylor perked up.

"Sam hasn't been turned yet because he wants to wait til he's older, and Max is okay with that. But you, Taylor...they want to turn you, too."

"Mike," Taylor scoffed. "I don't even eat meat. I can't even deal with a dead chicken, what do you think a dead person is going to do to me?"

"It's different when you're like us, trust me. Besides, Sam and I told them you wouldn't want this."

"And?"

"They said they'd find a way to bring you around. They won't listen for long though, Taylor."

The sun began to peek over the horizon, just ever so slightly, and Michael sat erect. Silently, he turned his back to her and went inside, pulling thick curtains over the glass of the door.


	8. Chapter 8

Taylor was no pushover, and she would not be 'talked into' joining Max's sick family. What she wanted to do was leave, find a place for herself and maybe for Sam, and they'd only ever go out in the daytime, when their family couldn't get to them. But that fantasy was impossible without a job.

Besides, a job made _sense_. It kept her from being nocturnal - she'd see less of her family if she slept at night - and it gave her someplace to be everyday, where they'd notice if she went missing or suddenly stopped showing up. So approximately twelve hours after arriving at Santa Carla, Taylor went upstairs, fixed up her hair and makeup, put on a pantsuit, and headed in search of a beauty salon.

Max's house backed out onto the beach a ways down from the boardwalk. If they avoided peak hours - which the family, largely nocturnal, did - it was like a private beach. But as Michael had drove her in yesterday, Taylor realized that their close proximity to the shore meant something else as well: they were far away from downtown.

Taylor had spotted the keys to the white Mercedes she'd seen yesterday in a dish on a side table next to the front door. Without thinking on it for too long, she'd taken them. Besides, it's not like anyone would need to go anywhere this time of day, would they?

As she drove, she noted how different the rest of Santa Carla was from the boardwalk. The boardwalk could thrive just about any time, benefiting solely from tourist traps, amusement rides, and rip off carnival games. Despite warnings of being 'The Murder Capital of the World,' visitors weren't deterred from the brightly-lit, family-friendly boardwalk. But downtown clearly wasn't doing as well.

Still, it was clear the locals used it, and frequently. Although there were no kitschy, souvenir shops like on the boardwalk, the downtown strip was dotted with thrift shores, grocery markets, general stores, gas stations, and - thankfully - hair salons. Although makeup was what Taylor preferred, she could do hair, and she could do it well. And, because so many people were moving from the town after missing persons began to increase, she didn't have to search long or hard before she found a job.

* * *

Taylor didn't return to the house until the sun had fallen below the horizon.

She'd stuck around the salon for a few hours after her interview, helping out Sherli, the owner and, before this morning, only worker. Then, once things slowed down during the evening, Taylor had taken her share of the tips and gone next door to the neighboring bar, ordering an Alabama Slammer as a point of celebration.

And now, as the Mercedes sped back up the driveway, she caught sight of five motorcycles parked directly in front of the carport. They'd blocked her out! Aggravated and more than a little tired, she'd parked the car in the middle of the driveway, effectively blocking _them_ in, and marched inside.

She tossed the keys back into the dish, where she'd found them, and started to head upstairs towards her room. She hadn't fully slept in nearly 48 hours, and at this point she was running on fumes. She wanted to crawl into a warm bath, listen to some George Michael, light some candles and maybe fall asleep in there.

"Taylor!" Lucy called her name. "We're having dinner!"

"I got a snack at the bar, thanks though!" She called back to her mother.

When Lucy began to protest, Taylor sped up, like she did back in Phoenix, in high school. Her mother would rarely give chase, and would often give up on arguing with her before she even began. Taylor, like her father, was as stubborn as they come. Although Lucy had changed, this was one thing that seemed to stay the same.

Taylor closed her bedroom door behind her, cursing that there was no lock on it. Max must've thought've that when he bought this house. But it gave her a little barrier, at least, and she started to peel off the pantsuit she'd been in all day, drawing a bath as she did so. Her room was still a maze, but less so now that she'd unpacked some of the boxes. Most of it was just clothes and shoes anyways, a few books and tapes here and there. Taylor liked to travel light, to pick up new things as she went. She was rarely sentimental, rarely holding on to things that didn't seem to matter.

Almost undressed, Taylor peeled off her purple thong, kicking it into the corner of the bathroom with the rest of her clothes. Humming along to the stereo, she sunk down to her shoulders in the tub. It was everything she hoped for - and then, suddenly, it was more.

"George Michael, huh? You've got real shit taste in music, Tay."

There he was, David, standing in her bathroom doorway the same way he stood in her bedroom the other night. His imposing figure glared down at her, still in the duster he never seemed to take off. Taylor didn't jump this time - despite his silent stealth, and what had been said last night, she knew he wouldn't hurt her. Paul had given her a no-bite promise, from all the boys.

"What do you want, David?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Lucy and Max sent me, they want you down here in half an hour for family dinner." David grinned at her. "But, mostly, I wanted to look at you, like this."

"All you had to do was ask," She flirted back sarcastically, rolling her eyes and she sighed. "I guess I'm done here then, hand me a towel."

Realizing she hadn't brought one into the bathroom with her, David walked to the hall bathroom to get her one. Now that was an image, he smirked, Taylor's tan, wet ass scurrying out of her room to the hall bathroom, swiping a towel and rushing back before anyone could see her. Thinking of it, he half-wished he'd denied her request.

"Here," David said, tossing the towel onto the edge of the large bathtub, careful to avoid hitting any of the candles she'd lit earlier. _Faith_ continued to repeat itself over and over on the radio as Taylor stood up, smirking just as David had earlier.

She was soaked. Water dripped from her shoulders, sloping down her breasts and hardening her nipples, pooling at the gap between her thighs.

David looked at her for half a second, only long enough to realize what was happening, and then quickly spun around, his back to her. For just a moment, Taylor balked - she hadn't expected this.

She'd known what she was doing, standing up for him. She'd done it partially because she wanted to flirt, partially because she thought it might annoy him, and mostly to see his reaction. But this was one she hadn't been expecting - David was being a gentleman? Here she was, revealing all of herself to him, daring him to take her, and he was turning around to guard her _modesty?_

She grabbed the towel, and David kept his back to her.

"I'll see you at dinner." He said quietly, exiting the room.

Now this, this was interesting.


	9. Chapter 9

David was thankful that vampires' cheeks couldn't flush, or otherwise the boys would've glared at him when he walked back downstairs, especially Michael.

God, Taylor was hot. She was so hot that, if he stared at her for a moment longer, he would've grown hard right there in his dark jeans, without even touching her. So he had to turn around.

He didn't give a shit that Taylor was Michael's sister, or Max's new stepdaughter, or anything like that - what he cared about was that Max was _living_, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd been with a living thing without killing it. And God, he really did not want to kill her. He wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do with her, but it most definitely wasn't that.

But, flushed or not, his boys could tell something was different when he walked back into the room. Dwayne, inarguably the most intuitive, stared at him with questioning eyes.

"Did something happen, David?" Laddie asked quietly, always just the slightest bit nervous to speak to the cruelest member of the gang. "You look...different."

The other boys stopped talking, even Paul and Marko, to look at him. Slowly, stupid grins began to take over their faces as Lucy and Max emerged from the kitchen, broad smiles on both of their faces.

"What the hell's going on?" Sam said, quickly alarmed by the change in behavior from everyone in the room.

"When a vampire develops a strong feeling," Max explained. "The others he's linked to can feel it as well. It happens when one dies, or gets hurt badly - "

"Or when one falls in love." Michael said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" Sam exclaimed. "Really, our_ sister?"_

* * *

Taylor quickly applied some mascara and lipgloss, moussing her hair and blowing it dry as quickly as she could. She lived to annoy her mother, and, in normal circumstances, she'd probably live to annoy Max as well - but this was far from normal. While she wasn't quite afraid of them, she didn't want to provoke them either, especially over something as silly as a family dinner.

And, like the other night, Taylor wanted to see David again. The sight of him glancing at her, though only for half a second, had caused a warm ache to grow between her thighs. Her nipples were hardened not because of the water, but because of him.

Then he turned around? What was that about? Did he not find her attractive, or was there some kind of rule against human-vampire relationships somewhere that she didn't know about? Either way, it's not like it was something she could ask about. Half of her wanted to cut her losses and forget about it, but she just couldn't shake him from her mind.

The way his eyes felt on her was so electric, she wondered how his hands would feel.

Taylor shook her head, pulling on her underwear and purposely ignoring how slick she already was. She'd noticed that David, under his duster, had been dressed rather nicely - family dinner must be a formal affair now.

After her hair dried enough, Taylor rummaged through a box to find one of her favorite outfits, which turned a lot of heads back in Phoenix, and no doubt would do the same here. But there was one pair of eyes in particular that Taylor was really looking for.

It was a red liquid-leather miniskirt, combined with a cropped black tank top that just barely met in the middle. She pulled on a pair of thigh-high boots to complete the look, ones that she'd gotten as a last minute splurge before she left Phoenix, and smiled at herself in the mirror.

None of them would be able to ignore her now, no matter how hard they tried.

She descended the stairs in slow, purposeful steps, knowing that, through the open back slats of the floating stairwell, David and the boys were watching her. She could sense their eyes on her, a feeling she knew well now - the feeling of being stalked, of being prey. But Taylor prided herself on being the type of prey that was exceedingly difficult to chew.

To her surprise, as she rounded the corner, the boys were not the only ones watching her. Lucy was fuming, her new, sharp face skewed up in a scowl.

"Go. Change." She huffed.

"Mom, I'm an adult," Taylor avoided her mother's eyes, knowing there was fire behind them. Something inside of Taylor squirmed uncomfortably - Lucy had never cared what she'd worn back in Phoenix.

"Lucy, it's fine." Max appealed to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. Silently, Lucy removed it, and stalked off to the kitchen, Laddie, Paul, and Marko trailing behind her.

Max turned to Taylor, pouring her a glass from a bottle of Merlot sitting on the sideboard. He handed it to her, a small smile on his face, as if this was a peace offering. Taylor shuddered, but was never one to turn down a good red, and so she accepted it, taking a few tentative sips while Max called to his new wife.

"How are the steaks looking, honey?"

"Wait," Taylor said, suddenly distressed. "Mom, did he say _steaks?"_

"Yes, he did!" Lucy called back, poking her head in from the kitchen doorway. "I made yours and Sam's a little bit more well done, so that you don't have to worry about getting sick from the raw meat."

"Raw meat? Mom, have you lost your mind?" Taylor looked at her mother incredulously. "How could you have forgotten I was a vegetarian? I've been one for ten years!"

Sam and Michael exchanged looks with each other as well - it seemed like no one, apart from Max, was aware of Lucy's decision.

"Taylor," Lucy chuckled lightly. "I thought that was just some silly phase. Besides, if you're going to be a part of this family, you're going to have to learn to eat - "

_"Meat?"_ Taylor questioned accusingly. "Were you about to refer to the people you all kill as meat?"

Lucy looked at her feet, quickly realizing her mistakes - that this was not the way to win with her daughter. Max looked between the two of them.

"Taylor, it's simple biology, you have to understand that. Predator and prey, that kind of thing." Max's voice was calm, the same steady lull it always was, and it Taylor didn't know better, she would've easily fallen for it. "Humans are no longer the top of the food chain, and most of them don't even know it yet."

Taylor shuddered, felt her stomach churn in a way that it hadn't in years, as Paul, wholly oblivious, carried out a large platter of bloody, raw meat. Marko and Laddie trailed behind him, silverware and plates in their hands respectively. They were setting the table, Taylor realized; that was their dinner.

She gulped down the remainder of her wine glass in a single go, then raced out the front door.


	10. Chapter 10

**Woo! I've had a lot of inspiration for this story lately, and it's surprisingly easy to work a rewrite when most of the main plot points are already figured out! That being said, I hope everyone who's reading is really enjoying this, and I'd totally appreciate some reviews if you guys have the time! Either way, I'm totally grateful for everyone who's viewed this story. Thanks! xx.**

**Also, the last chapter had a major plot change from my original story! It'll be revealed later, but I'm curious if anyone caught it...**

* * *

David could feel himself vibrating, shaking with anger and fury. He was aware that Sam wasn't much better - his brows were furrowed in anger, directed at his mother. Neither boy was quite sure how Lucy could do this to her daughter, could disregard everything she wanted and force her into a life that she so clearly wasn't made for. A vegetarian vampire - now that was a laugh.

Lucy seemed distressed, at least, by her daughter's sudden absence. While the other boys disregarded the situation, not wanting to become involved, she turned to her husband for comfort.

"Max..." Her shoulders fell. "I really didn't think - "

"It's okay," He hugged her, leaning down to whisper into her ear something that only David heard. "She'll be back, Lucy, once she learns what she's becoming."

David felt his body stiffen sharply.

* * *

For a while, Taylor really didn't know where to go. She'd walked a long way from the house, in the direction of the boardwalk, thankful that the night had cooled down Santa Carla. But she didn't want to stay there - after dinner, her whole family would probably head down there, to pick up some _fresh meat_. Taylor scoffed. She didn't want to risk running into them.

Her hands dipping into her pockets, Taylor found a balled up ten dollar bill - must've been from the last time she wore this skirt, and had an idea.

If anyone would understand, Grandpa Emerson would. A small smile overcame her face as she hailed a taxi and gave him a familiar address.

* * *

"Get the hell off my property, she-demon!" Grandpa Emerson opened the door violently, careful not to cross the threshold as she shoved a cross into the face of his granddaughter.

Taylor sighed, pushing past him and moving into the house, proving her human-ness.

"You don't have to worry, I'm not one of them."

He smiled at her proudly, mumbling something about how she always was the smart one, and leading her to the kitchen. He passed her one of his off-limits root beers.

"So, if you aren't one, then they want you to be, aye?" He looked away from her as she nodded, not quite sure what he could say. "It's your choice, Taylor, they're your family. You have to decide if you're willing to lose them over this or not; I've already made my decision."

Grandpa Emerson said, alluding to the fact this his daughter, and his immortal grandson, were no longer welcome in his house.

"I don't know what to say," Taylor said honestly. "I mean, vampirism is alluring, of course. I'd get to be forever young and everything, never really have to worry about dying. Plus, I'd get to be with Mike and Sam always, never having to worry about them. But there's something different about people, once they turn. They start to become...less human, I think. And then there's the food thing. I've been a vegetarian for forever, Grandpa, I don't know that I could just jump from that to eating...people."

"Sounds like you've got a lot of things to think about. I want you to know that, as long as you're human, you're always welcome here." Grandpa sighed, noticing the bags under her eyes. "Now head upstairs, to your mom's old room. Seriously, how long has it been since you slept?"

"Longer than you'd like to know," Taylor laughed, taking his advice and moving towards the bedroom. "I'll see you in the morning?"

"I'll be here."

* * *

The evening hours ticked by in the Emerson household, and Taylor did not return.

Lucy and Max had gone out to the video store hours ago, shortly after dinner, and the rest of the boys had gone for a second feeding. Only Sam and David remained in the house and Sam, frightened by the prospect of being alone with David, had scurried upstairs as soon as everyone left.

David paced the living room. He would not feed tonight, not until Taylor came home.

How the hell was he supposed to tell her? Should he even tell her? 'By the way, your mom and Max conspired to make you a vampire without your knowledge by passing blood off as wine,' didn't exactly have a ring to it.

And how would Taylor take the news? After dinner, David assumed it wouldn't go so well. He wondered if, by being the one to tell her, he'd be attaching himself to this negative memory, and she'd never think of him the same way she had earlier, in the bathroom upstairs.

But he felt he had to take that chance. And, more so, he was starting to wonder where she was. It was nearing the middle of the morning - 3am - and Taylor had yet to return home. There wasn't much she could walk to from the house, apart from the boardwalk, but if she was down there one of the boys would've said something by now.

They would all be returning soon, yet David had a feeling Taylor wouldn't be with them.

Slow, cautious footsteps came down the stairs, causing David's head to fling upwards.

It was Sam.

He moved towards David, who was hunched over on the couch, his chin in his hands.

"Are you worried about her?" Sam asked quietly. David could hear his pulse thump - Sam was still scared of him, but he was trying at least.

So David could try too.

"I am, I don't even know where she would've gone."

"I have an idea," Sam said. "But I don't think he'll let you in to see her. I don't think he'll let either of us in."

_"Him?"_ David's voice dripped with venomous anger.

"Grandpa."


	11. Chapter 11

Taylor woke up slowly, to the sound of tree limbs hitting the fragile glass window pane. There were no curtains or blinds covering the window, and so pure, unobstructed light poured into the room. She groaned, rolling over, nearly committing to returning to sleep, when she heard Grandpa Emerson call her name.

"Breakfast!" He hollered, just loud enough to disturb her again.

Sighing harshly, Taylor rose from the bed, covering her eyes with her arm. She had slept in the clothes from last night, her liquid leather skirt ruffled and turned sideways. At the foot of the bed were her boots, slightly tinted orange from Grandpa's dirt driveway. She fumbled with the nightstand, her eyes still shielded from the light, until she found her watch.

Eight in the morning. The salon wouldn't open til ten, there was plenty of time for her to get ready, and her 'family' would be fast asleep by now. Taylor said a silent thank you that she would not have to show up to work dressed like a lady of the evening on only her second day.

She rubbed under her eyes, scraping away the remainders of yesterday's makeup, pulled on her boots, and headed downstairs.

"I've got to head out after breakfast, Grandpa." She said, hugging him tightly, a silent thank you for letting her stay the night. "I found a job!"

"Really? Where at?" He passed her a lukewarm Poptart. Taylor smiled - she should've known better than to think he'd actually cooked something, like her mom used to do. "Don't tell me it's one of those tourist traps down on the boardwalk. They are always hiring though - they can't keep any female employees, what with Max's boys running around like they do."

Taylor nodded, silently noting that, although they were technically Lucy's boys now too, Grandpa Emerson did not refer to them as that.

"No, downtown. At Sherli's Salon, it's the little - "

"Pink building on the corner!" Grandpa Emerson exclaimed. "I know it well. Back in the day, they used to cut my hair. Sherli's no spring chicken, but she's had that shop for years. She's good people."

"She opens up at ten, so I have to get going soon." Taylor's face fell just slightly; she would be sad to leave him. "Can you call me a taxi?"

"Nonsense! You'll take my car." He slid the keys across the kitchen table before she had a chance to react. "It's not like I really ever use it, and it'd be nice to have something of your own, especially in _that_ house. Something you can use to get away if you need to."

His words were very pointed. He was honest when he said, last night, that staying or leaving her family was her decision - but he obviously did not want her to stay. Grandpa didn't want to lose her the same way he had his daughter and grandsons, and Taylor felt a similar connection; the car was evidence of that. She took the keys without a fight, something that was rare for her.

"I really appreciate that, Grandpa, I really do."

He nodded at her, not one for many words, and grabbed the newspaper off the counter, retreating to the bathroom.

"Don't be a stranger Taylor, you hear?"

She hoped she wouldn't be.

* * *

The house was silent as a tomb and, in a way, that was fitting. Although Mike had mentioned the boys often stayed elsewhere for the night, there was at least one vampire sleeping here this morning. Taylor could sense it through the silence, her hair standing on end the way it always seemed to when in the presence of the undead.

While she was sure the others slept soundly, Taylor still crept up the stairs so not to wake Sam, who seemed to keep the same sleep schedule as the others in the house. It was a tough feat - during the day, Max had intricate layers of blackout blinds and curtains over the windows and doors, rendering the house entirely black. She flicked on the hall light as she moved, and headed towards her bedroom.

She shut it with a quiet _click_, pressing her back against it for a moment to catch her breath, her eyes closed. She sunk to the ground, reaching down to pull off her boots and slide out of her skirt, piling them on the floor. She'd have to get a clothes hamper later on.

Only in her thong and cropped tank, she moved towards the window, sliding back the thick curtains in a swift motion. That was the best thing about Max's house, her favorite thing: the view. Her picture window opened up straight onto the beach, which was just beginning to fill up with tourists. By 11 o'clock, she assumed, it would be packed.

From behind her, Taylor heard a sharp, painful hiss. Gasping harshly, Taylor spun on her heels to examine the room. There, in her bed, was David.

He had curled away from the light, his skin pinkish from the glare of the sun, and he was about to cry out in pain.

"Shit!" Taylor cried, rushing to shut the curtains again, and nearly tearing them off their rungs in the process. She paused afterward, allowing her eyes to adjust to the sudden absence of light, until she could see David's figure, still huddled on the bed. "I'm sorry."

A few moments of silence passed, until Taylor started to quietly move towards the bed, half wondering if she'd killed him. What was he even doing in here, anyway?

"David," She touched his shoulder, and he jumped away from her. But she sensed something, a feeling that he needed her more than he was willing to let on, and she grabbed his shoulder again, more forcefully, rolling him so she could look into his eyes.

He looked like he was in so much pain, all because of her. And his skin - his chest, bare under the duster, and his face - were reddish-pink, the beginnings of a first- or second-degree burn. It made her heart clench, her chest ache in a way she hadn't felt before.

"I need blood." He said quietly. "I'm not going to get better until I can feed."

"What were you doing in here, David?"

He mumbled something under his breath, his eyes looking somewhere other than her.

"What?" She asked again, pushing him for an answer.

"I was waiting for you to come home." He said quietly. "I...I wanted to make sure you got in alright."

Taylor's heart warmed, but her brows furrowed. Her entire family - Mom, Mike, and Sam - had gone to sleep after she'd left for the evening, and it had been David - _David!_ \- who'd stayed up waiting for her, worried about her wellbeing.

She didn't respond to his remark, merely climbed onto the bed and, grabbing onto the headboard for balance, positioning herself directly over David's face. Except, instead of placing the space between her legs above his lips, she shifted, so that they grazed the upmost part of her tan thigh.

"You know," David said weakly. "Your wrist would've done the trick."

"Bite here." Taylor said, trying to hide how her voice quivered with anticipation, both fear and a fervor of passion. He was so close to another part of her, a part that she suddenly badly wanted him to taste. "I have to be at work in an hour, and I can't have any marks."

* * *

**Some of the rules of vampirism are slightly tweaked just _gently_. I.e. - I can't have a hair stylist who works in front of a mirror all day suddenly lack a reflection. Hopefully this doesn't discourage anyone from enjoying this fanfic! **

**Also, thank you to MusicLuver246 for being my first reviewer, I really appreciate it! And an additional thank you to everyone who's favoriting and subscribing :) xx.**


	12. Chapter 12

But, long after David's lips left Taylor's thigh, after she'd pulled on an unseasonable pair of high-rise jeans and a cropped band tee, after she'd fluffed her hair and applied her thin layer of makeup and waltzed out of the house twirling a new set of keys around her finger, David was still burnt.

And he knew why.

He'd used the darkness of the room to his advantage, convincing Taylor that her blood had helped him, and pretending to fall back into his usual daytime sleep as she began to get ready for work. Her blood had strengthened him, sure, but it hadn't healed his wounds - vampire blood, even that of a halfling, couldn't do that. He needed to be fed by a full-blooded human and Taylor, as it seemed, was no longer one of those.

He wondered how long it would be before she noticed, before the sun felt unbearably hot and bright and she started to sleep in later and she developed a hunger for something which she could not name.

But he knew now, he couldn't be the one to tell her. Not after what they'd both just admitted, while he was sleeping in her room and she was practically sitting on his face. They wanted each other, and they were both afraid of it.

When the front door shut again, and the bolt slammed into place, David rose from the bed, avoiding contact with anything. He grimaced loudly even as he turned the door handle, and it left irritated marks on his burnt skin. He moved towards Sam's room. It wasn't ideal, but it was well worth a try.

David called for Sam loudly - but not loud enough to wake the others - only to save himself from having to touch another thing. Sam answered, groggy and confused.

"What the hell?" Sam asked, his eyes bugging out at David's pink tint.

"I had an accident, with your sister." He spoke through gritted teeth.

"Did you try to make a move on her, and she yanked back the curtains and unleashed the wrath of the sun on ya?" Sam laughed harshly, ignoring the pained look on David's face.

"Something like that." David huffed. "Anyways, I need blood."

Sam made a face.

"Ooh no! You all gave me a no-bite promise! Go ask my sister, this is her fault!" Sam moved the slam the door, but David stuck out a hand, stopping it. He ignored the pain shooting up his damaged arm.

"I can't ask your sister, Sam, and I can't tell you why." David thought for a moment. "Or, maybe I will tell you why - after you help me."

"David - "

"Look kid," He said harshly. "You've read the comics, I've seen you, and you know what a bite does - _absolutely nothing_, unless I take too much blood. Which I won't, because Max and Lucy would _have my head_. So think about this for a minute before you decide: what do you have to lose? And what do you have to gain?"

Sam swallowed, thinking of his older sister, as he opened the door just a few inches more. Without allowing David into the room, Sam stuck his wrist out into the hallway.

David didn't need to be asked twice. He bit down, sharply enough that Sam didn't feel much pain at all, and began to suck.

When his skin returned to its usual pale shade, Sam ripped his arm away. David nearly growled, drained and feral, but decided against it. He best hold up his end of the deal, and not anger Sam.

"What's wrong with Taylor?" Sam asked, his eyes filled with a worry that was curiously absent from the rest of his family's. That was the thing about being human - you felt things more strongly then, cared for them. Vampirism had its pluses, but it also had its complications, its coldness.

"The wine from last night," David began, but didn't quite know how to finish.

"No," Sam breathed, disbelief flickering in his eyes. He looked up, his anger settling on David. "You! Did you give it to her!"

"I wouldn't do that to her, Sam." David sighed and, for some reason, Sam believed him.

It was a convenient narrative - David liked Taylor. If what Michael said last night was true, then David even loved her, but humans and vampires rarely mixed well together, countless histories had pointed that out. So, in order to win her love, David had decided to trick her into becoming one of them. The story made sense, but it didn't feel right. It was like jamming together mismatched puzzle pieces. Sam furrowed his brows.

"Max gave her the wine, I remember because she was the only one drinking it." Sam said, lost in his thoughts.

"You're smart, Sam." David shook his head. "I'll leave you to figure this one out on your own. Thank you, by the way."

David stalked down the hall, headed towards the basement where the rest of the boys slept when they stayed the night here, the upstairs bedrooms reserved for permanent residents - Sam, Michael, Max and Lucy, and now Taylor. But most of them, David would bet, were in the cave tonight, even Laddie, who much preferred the familiarity of the Emerson household. He hadn't heard them return from the boardwalk last night.

As Taylor swam in his thoughts, David shut the basement door behind him, and prepared to catch up on his sleep.


	13. Chapter 13

The morning had started with a rush, a crowd of customers lined up to get their hair done. They were of all ages and background - a boardwalk performing here to get his mohawk tips highlighted green, a tourist here for a Brazilian blowout before her family's beach photoshoot. There were even men the age of Taylor's grandfather, who, Sherli told her, came in weekly for a trim, even if they didn't need it. It seemed like Sherli had been overbooked for a long time.

The morning went by quickly, and they closed for a late lunch around 3. By then, Taylor was inexplicably exhausted, her eyes pained from the light shining through the windows. Sherli looked at her new employee quizzically - she certainly hadn't been this worn out yesterday.

"You doin' alright, Taylor?" Sherli said. Although her voice was earnest, she avoided Taylor's eyes, crossing to one of the mirrors in the shop and to touch up her own curls. "You look a little worn down."

"Yeah," The mirror Sherli had chosen was directly in front of the store windows, and Taylor found herself unable to look at her straight on. "Just feeling a little off, I didn't get much sleep last night."

That, Taylor knew, was a flat-out lie. Last night, in her mother's old bed at Grandpa's house, she'd gotten the best sleep she had in the three days she'd been in Santa Carla. For the first time since arriving, she'd felt safe. She'd had someone to take care of her who was actually going to take care of her, unlike her mother and Michael.

"I'll run next door," Sherli smiled, patting her on the arm. "And get you something to wake you up for the next couple hours. I'm also going to grab myself a sandwich, if you want one. Do you prefer coffee or tea?"

The thought of food made Taylor's stomach churn uneasily - even her favorite foods, grilled cheese and warm soups - made her fight back an urge to release her breakfast all of the shop floor. Her lips held together in a thin line, she shook her head.

"You're too kind, Sherli." Taylor smiled at her, but her lips were still firmly together. They were fighting to hold the contents of her stomach inside of her. "I like both, for the record, but today is definitely a coffee day."

With a smile that was meant to be assuring, Sherli took off her smock and headed out the door, sure to shut it firmly behind her. Inside the saloon it was safe, and happy, which made it all too easy to forgot how hard people in the town struggled to stay afloat. Getting gas in Grandpa's Fairlane this morning, she'd spotted another billboard of missing people. While the one by the beach seemed to be for tourists, this one seemed to be focused on local disappearances, on people that lived in Santa Carla, and didn't just vacation here. There were just as many names on this one as they were on the other, and Taylor couldn't help but feel her heart sink, wondering how much of this her family and the lost boys were responsible for.

The sun, even filtered through windows, felt too bright and too violating, and she quickly retreated to Sherli's office, where there were no windows and no streaming sunlight, to wait for her evening coffee.

()()()

The sun was in the process of setting when Taylor arrived home. Only half of it was visible over the horizon, and it shared the sky with the moon. Instead of feeling exhausted, like she had all day, Taylor began to feel like she was waking up. Maybe the three cups of coffee were only just now kicking in, but she started to feel rejuvenated, excited, and antsy. Like she wanted to do something, be somewhere, and she needed to do it now.

The bikes of the lost boys were sitting in her driveway when she arrived. Only this time, they'd parked in two lines surrounding the drive, giving her enough space to maneuver the Fairlane into the carport. From a perch on the rooftop, David watched her do so uneasily, anxious about hitting one of the bikes or scratching her grandfather's beloved car. He fought back a chuckle.

"What are you laughing at?" Sam said, poking his head out from his bedroom window, only a few feet away from where David was sitting. David scowled at him instinctively, about to tell him to fuck off, when Sam bravely took a step outside of his window, and onto the roof.

"Just because of what happened this morning doesn't make us friends, buddy." David said the last words bitingly, flashing his teeth at the teenager.

"I know that," Sam rolled his eyes. "But do you know what we become if you marry my sister? In-laws!"

David balked as Sam howled with quiet laughter. Despite their interaction, they were determined not to let anyone else in the house know that the two who hated each other, and Max's arrangement, the most were holding a conversation.

"Marriage? Sam, we're vampires and that's Max's thing, not mine." David sighed. "Plus, I haven't…we haven't…"

"I know, you dummy. I'm just teasing you." Sam laughed. "But it's obvious you care about her."

David avoided Sam's eyes. Usually he was a master at reading people, at figuring out what they wanted and why they were around him. With Sam, he wasn't so sure.

"Is that why you're out here? To give me some 'stay away from my sister' talk because you know Michael won't?"

"No. Besides, I don't really think I'm that intimidating to you anyway. I'm out here because I know you're the only person in this house - and I use that term loosely - who's as upset as me about what Mom and Max did to Taylor." Sam and David looked at each other, the coldness in their eyes wavering as they heard Taylor get out of the car. Their voices dropped. "David, what's going to happen to her?"

"She can be a half, for a little while. Star held out the longest of anyone, and even then it was only about a month or so before…" David trailed off, because Sam knew. Before she started to go mad, before she couldn't take it any more, and she took off and no one knew what happened to her after that. "Is there any chance that she'll accept it, that she'll feed?"

Sam shook his head. "Of course there is, but it's slim. She loves the sun, she loves people and mornings and she even loves stupid vegetables that no one else does. Mom and Max didn't think this through."

Neither one of them would say it aloud, so it remained unspoken, but both boys knew that there was a possibility that Max and Lucy might not have thought of - by turning her against her will, there was a chance they'd lose their newest daughter permanently.

David shook his head rapidly.

"I won't let that happen. I'll help her, I'll teach her, I'll - " And David believed it too. He'd seen the way she'd smirked when she stood up in the bath, revealing all of herself to him. He'd seen the way her head rolled back when he was feeding from her, desperately trying and failing to pretend that she didn't like it. And even now, he'd caught a small smile on her face when she saw how the boys had moved their bikes from the driveway, leaving room for her car to pass through.

"David," Sam interrupted. "We have to do something, but Taylor can be…difficult. She's going to reject all of this, even you, once she knows."

David's heart, which was already hard and cold and shrunken, sunk in his chest just a little more.


	14. Chapter 14

Taylor entered the house and headed straight for her room, noticing her family crowded around the living room, eyes trained on Max. Two familiar faces, however, were missing.

"We're having a family meeting," Max clarified. Then, having raised enough children to know it would be better to give her an option instead of a demand, he continued. "You're welcome to stay, if you like. But none of it really pertains to you right now, at least. We're talking about the boardwalk."

"Max wants to expand his store!" Lucy said excitedly, the diamond on her left hand glimmering in the room's dim lighting. Michael rolled his eyes from behind her.

"Yeah, I'm good." Taylor shook her head. "I'll be upstairs if you need me. I'm going to head to bed."

Despite her sudden burst of energy, she knew she should try and sleep tonight. She had work again the next morning, and she was hoping to be more awake than she was today. Even with her exhaustion, she'd still managed to do some good work, and brought home more money than she probably deserved. The clients seemed exceptionally tolerant of her frequent breaks for sips of lukewarm coffee.

As she began ascending the stairs, she took note of David and Sam rushing down them. They were noticeably late to this "family meeting," and arriving together - which was sure to arouse some suspicion, even if just from Michael. David wanted to speak to Taylor as he passed her on the stairs, to explain why she was suddenly full of energy and excitement instead of sleepwalking, as she had been all day. But he couldn't, and so he hardened his face, and his eyes, and pushed past her without looking. Feeling something in her falter, she did the same.

Sam glanced at least locked eyes with her, giving her a small smile as he headed downstairs. "You're not going to the meeting?" He asked.

"Not tonight," Taylor said, even though she wanted to add, probably not any night. "I'm tired."

Sam could see it in her eyes that she, like the rest of them, was not tired. She was alert. Like the others, she would go into a predatory mode once the sun was down - her senses heightened, excited by everything around her. That was why the boys loved the boardwalk so much. There was always something new, they were never bored.

She shut the door behind her quickly, mentally making a note that, tomorrow, she should see about installing a deadbolt. Maybe that would let her sleep in peace. But she had lied, and she was not tired in the slightest. She yanked open her picture window and watched the beach, the waves tirelessly beating against the shore. She should sleep, but she wanted to go out.

"No," She told herself firmly, shaking her head and shutting the blackout blinds. She moved to the bathroom, and started a warm shower in hopes that it would calm her. But it didn't, of course, and so she tried other things - reading, meditating, forcing herself to lay in dark silence. She kept thinking about David, about his avoidance of her tonight, and wished that he didn't weigh so heavily on her mind.

After an hour or two, she came to the conclusion that there would be no sleep for her tonight, and began pacing the room, changing out of her pajamas and into a pair of shorts and a tank top. It felt like the boardwalk - no, the beach - was calling her. It wanted her to come, and she was sick of rejecting it. Her stomach ached with a strange kind of emptiness.

Downstairs, Sam could hear her pacing. The others had gone out to hunt, and Mom and Max had gone to the video store. He thought, for just a moment, about going up there and taking advantage of the empty house, of telling her what she is, and giving her the option to run. Or, he thought, he could tell her what the Frogg brothers told him - she could kill Max, become human again, and return to the life she had in Phoenix, before all this. Would Taylor choose that, he wondered. He didn't think she'd kill her family to save herself, even if she didn't recognize half of them anymore.

In the end, Sam decided not to tell her anything, and instead listened to her anxious pacing on the floor above him. Until, abruptly, it stopped. It was followed by a crash, the sound of running feet, and a short but familiar scream.

()()()

Sam raced upstairs, his heart pounding out of his chest. What if, what if she had already given in to vampirism, and he walked in on his favorite sister kneeling over a pale body, her face contorted and bat-like? He swallowed harshly.

"Taylor!" He called her name, bursting into her room.

Sitting on the pink shag carpet next to the bed was Laddie. Taylor was beside him, her legs criss crossed, leaning forward on her elbows. In one corner, a stack of boxes had been knocked over - presumably what Sam had heard - but neither of them seemed too worried about it. Laddie was smiling, showing Taylor something, and she was watching him carefully.

It was hard, Sam knew, to equate a little boy with being a killer. Children were supposed to be innocent, were supposed to be protected, and instead Max and David had turned him into something unnatural. Laddie started out as a pawn, Sam knew, and then had slowly transformed into more than that, into a member of the family. Still, out of all the Lost Boys, David was the one who cared the least for him. In his eyes, Laddie had failed his purpose, he'd failed to get Star to feed.

But Taylor didn't see that. When she saw Laddie, she just saw a child. Sure, the child was as dangerous as a switchblade, but he did what he did to survive, not because he meant it. Unlike the others, Laddie was too young to be malicious.

"Taylor?" Sam said, out of breath from moving so quickly up the stairs.

"Sorry if we scared you," Taylor looked up at him, and Sam showed visible relief. This was confirmation that she was okay. "Laddie jumped out at me again, I knocked over a couple boxes."

Sam rolled his eyes. "He's got a thing for doing that. Most of the boys, and Max and Mom, can sense him coming."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here," Laddie said abruptly, looking pointedly at Sam. His eyes flashed darkly for less than a second - so quickly that Sam might've missed it - and then returned to their regular shade. "I was showing Taylor the slingshot I won at the boardwalk last night. I want to go again tonight!"

"The boys already left, Laddie, you should've gone - "

"I'll take him!" Taylor cut him off, clearly eager for an excuse to get out of the house and prolong sleep once more. "I'll take him in the Fairlane, the boardwalk isn't even that far."

Before Sam could protest, Taylor was off the floor and Laddie was laughing, talking about going on rides. For a moment, Sam wondered if Taylor knew what she was getting herself into - but he remembered that she had, in fact, seen Laddie with those boys the first night. She knew he was like the others. And yet, she was willing to accept him.

Sam wondered if maybe she'd do the same when she found out about herself.


	15. Chapter 15

Someone was watching them.

Laddie could feel it, familiar eyes trained on him from a distance, unblinking and black and feral - like his own.

They had ridden the carousel and the tilt-a-whirl and every ride that Laddie was tall enough to go on, and still he begged for more. That was part of being an immortal child, Taylor figured - once was never enough. And so, armed with her tip money, Taylor had marched back up to the ticket booth and brought just one more ticket, for one more ride, and told Laddie to pick his favorite. But, before she could hand over the money, a familiar figure appeared beside them.

The man at the ticket booth gulped harshly.

"The ride's free tonight, ma'am." Abruptly, he shut the grate over his window and closed the ticket booth down. Taylor's brows furrowed, and she turned to look at the man who appeared beside them.

"What was that about?" Her hands rested firmly on her hips.

"Couldn't tell ya." Dwayne smiled, his dark lips pulling back to reveal dazzling rows of bright white teeth. Vampirism, Taylor concluded, must make you significantly more attractive. But then again, you had to be in order to catch new prey every night.

"What are you doing here?" Laddie asked, latching on to Taylor's hand. "I was having fun!"

"I know," Dwayne nodded. "But how about we skip the rest of the rides, and we fly later."

"Fly?!" Taylor said incredulously. "You can fly?"

"Duh," Laddie said. "Well, I can't just yet, but they can. Dwayne said I'll learn eventually."

"And you will," Dwayne nodded, holding out his hand for Laddie to take. Reluctantly, Laddie grabbed it. Dwayne looked toward Taylor. "David wants to see you."

Taylor balked.

"Excuse me, but you can tell David where I'm at if he wants to 'see me.' I'm not at his beck and call." She crossed her arms, managing to look both intimidating and adorable at the same time. Dwayne locked eyes with someone behind her, and she heard a light chuckle - David.

"What do you want?" Her arms remained cross, her voice firm. She was still fuming from earlier, when he'd ignored her on the stairs.

"To show you something." He shrugged. "Unless, you don't want to see it."

Abruptly, Taylor dropped her arms. She was wary of seeming too eager, but knew that anything David wanted to show her had to be interesting. He was like that, the kind of person that was mysterious, and made you wonder about them.

"Show me." She sighed, knowing by the grin that spread across his face she had been defeated.

"Let's fly there," He smirked, giving her no choice before grabbing her arm and throwing her onto his back.

"David!" She yelled at him, but heard nothing in response as he raced off into the night. Taylor felt helpless, clinging to him, unsure of what was to come as he headed directly towards one of the cliffs that marked the edge of the boardwalk.

As he jumped off it, she shrieked, and malicious laughter filled her ears. Then, they flew.

()()()

They were in flight for maybe five minutes, or less than that. Their destination was definitely in walking distance of the boardwalk, but David had taken advantage of the situation to scare her, she knew, and it had worked.

"I need you to put me down." She said as they began their descent. "I mean it."

Her world was spinning, her stomach churning. Once David's feet touched the ground hers followed shortly after, and she sprinted away from him. She didn't get more than two feet away before she threw up into the sand.

"Jesus," David scoffed. He sounded disgusted, but Taylor noticed traces of sympathy in his voice. He wanted to scare her, but not like this.

When she was done, she spun on her heels to look at him, wiping her mouth.

"What the hell was that?"

"You've flown before," He shrugged. "With Paul."

"Right, but I was passed out the whole time. I didn't wake up until we were back at the house." She shook her head, uninterested in his excuses. But he'd grown cold again, and didn't give her anymore. "Whatever, David. What did you bring me here to show me, anyway?"

"Forget it," He said, turning away from her and starting to walk down the beach, as if he'd abandon her there. In the distance, no more than a mile or two away, shone the lights of the boardwalk.

"David," She huffed, moving after him. "Are you throwing a tantrum right now? You've got to be kidding me."

He didn't respond, only moved farther and farther down the shoreline, until she broke into a run to catch up with him. He didn't need to let her catch him, she knew. If he really wanted to leave her here, alone, he would've flown off again. But he hadn't, and that had to count for something. She reached out, grabbing his arm, and pulled him back towards her with strength she didn't quite know she had.

"Look at me!" She yelled, slightly out of breath, her chest rising up and down only inches from his.

She was still so alive, David shook his head. She was so alive that it hurt him, knowing that he was involved in this. It made him angry - at Max, at Lucy and all the Emersons - that she had been brought here, been tied into this. But none of those people were there, so instead he turned to Taylor.

"Do you understand what we are, Taylor? We're monsters, alright. Me, Laddie, Dwayne, your brother, all of us. I saw you on the boardwalk with him earlier. The way you two played, like you'd forgotten that he's young and careless and has the power to end your life in moments."

Taylor blinked, almost as if she hadn't thought of that. What if, while they were on one of those rides, strapped in next to each other, her adrenaline became too much, too tempting for Laddie? What if he'd bitten her right then and there, turned her into a corpse as the carousel spun around and around?

"Laddie wouldn't do that," She shook her head, clearing the image from her mind as she defended him. "You kill to survive. He said he wasn't hungry, and he just wanted to play."

Again, David laughed at her.

"Trust me, we kill because we enjoy it. The five of us could probably survive on one tourist a week, instead we pick our own prey each night. We didn't have to teach Laddie to kill, or to feed, he knew what he was doing already. Once you start to turn, the urge is in you permanently. You can't get rid of it, and, when it's strong enough," David thought about her tonight, how she claimed she was going to sleep only to appear on the boardwalk a few hours later. "When it's strong enough, you can't deny it."

Taylor shuddered, chilled by his words.

"I'm not afraid of you, David." She shook her head, gesturing towards the twin puncture marks just barely noticeable underneath the hem of her shorts. "If you wanted to kill me, you had your chance."

"What if I like to play with my food, Taylor?" He smirked, forcing his face to change from the handsome man she'd grown familiar with, to the bat-like creature she'd seen that first night.

She swallowed hard, her chest heaving up and down, her blood pumping faster. The adrenaline, David knew, would've made her so much sweeter. For the first time, David was thankful she was a halfling. If she hadn't drank the wine that night, David wouldn't have been able to control himself, to bring his face back to what she knew it as.

A moment passed, in silence. Taylor wanted to ask David why he was doing this, why he was trying so badly to scare her. But she couldn't, and she wasn't sure David was even able to answer that question himself yet. Instead, she settled for an easier question.

"What did you want to show me?"

Smiling again, David led her back to the spot they landed, gesturing towards a dark hole in between a couple of boulders. He motioned for her to move down it.

Taylor wasn't sure she could trust him, but also wasn't sure she had another option. Sucking in a breath, she moved into the dark gap between the rocks. Slowly, she turned to look at him. He was back lit by moonlight, and she couldn't make out his features. Even then, she knew he looked handsome.

"What is this?" Taylor worked up the courage to ask.

"This is our home."


	16. Chapter 16

"This is our home," David had said, gesturing towards the dark cavern ahead of her. Turning her face away from him, Taylor began to walk carefully, one step at a time, anxious of what awaited ahead of her.

She'd seen enough monster movies to know that, when a predator takes you to his den, he typically doesn't intend for you to make it back out alive. David was either opening a part of himself up to her, or he was going to kill her. Maybe an even worse fate awaited her, and Taylor shuddered as the thought of David turning her into one of them crossed her mind.

Adrenaline pumping, Taylor turned back to him.

"I can't do it," She sighed. "I'm afraid of being underground. It makes me claustrophobic."

She was lying, and David knew it. It made him angry, at first, that she trusted him so little, but then he felt hope at her instincts kicking in, the ones meant to keep her alive. Taylor was a smart woman, he knew; so different from the girls they typically brought down here. And no smart woman would go into a dark cave alone with a monster.

He couldn't be mad at her. He'd just reminded her of what he was, in an attempt to scare her, and it was working. It wasn't smart to do that, he guessed, right before taking her into the cave, but he couldn't change things now.

"It's okay, Taylor." His voice sounded as soothing as possible, given the circumstances, and what he was. Despite his efforts, even David himself could recognize a hint of familiar bite in it. "I'm not taking you down here to hurt you. I promise."

Taylor's bluff had been called. With a breathless huff, she turned and continued down the rocky path.

"Is it like this the whole way?"

"No, it opens up down here." David gestured to a light not far from them, maybe thirty feet away. Distracted by it, Taylor lost her footing, tripping over one of the loose stones beneath her feet. Before she could fall forward, and likely be rewarded with a broken nose or cracked skull, David reached up and grabbed her arm tightly, steadying her. "Careful."

"Thanks," Taylor huffed, noticing that he had yet to let go of her arm. She glanced at it pointedly, until David released her. She looked at him coldly. "I guess we're even then, from this morning."

David cursed as she spun away from him, continuing towards the light, albeit with more careful steps this time. Still, whenever he tried to be nice to her - to show her something, to be kind, to help her - she rejected him. It made his blood boil with anger, and frustration. He wasn't usually this nice - didn't she see that? Did she understand what it meant, for them?

Obviously not, because, unlike the rest of her family, Taylor was lacking the sixth sense that allowed linked vampires to feel each other's strongest emotions. When she turned fully, then she would be granted that power. If, David reminded himself, she did turn fully. She still had options, for now.

Taylor had entered the main cavern first, and David watched as her eyes lit up. The room was so familiar to him that he was always surprised when people were taken back by it.

"What is this place?" She asked breathlessly, her eyes traversing around the room, caressing each object and leaving nothing out.

"It used to be a hotel, right here on the beach. But an earthquake took it out a couple decades ago, and it sunk underground." David smiled at her, but not in the menacing way he had earlier. There was kindness in this smile, and openness that hadn't been there before. He wanted to tell her more, to keep talking to her. "I found it a long time ago, right after Max turned me. He wanted to keep me, like a son, but I was too old for that, and I'd been on my own for too long. I wanted my own home, so I went looking for one instead."

"It's beautiful," She ran her hand along one of the jagged stone edges of the cave. Just above it was one of the old light fixtures from the sunken hotel, the bulbs long-since burnt out. "The way it blends together, the hotel and the earth - I've never seen anything like it. How many caverns are there?"

"Five or six," David shrugged. "Most of them are empty. There used to be more, but, over the years stuff has caved in."

"Can I see them?" Taylor smiled, then turned to him and laughed. "I never thought I'd be asking you for a house tour."

"Well, I never thought I'd be giving you one." David smiled back at her, and she saw a lingering trace of humanity where there was none. If she had blinked, she would've missed it - but she didn't.

David moved toward her hesitantly, half wondering if she would move away from him, as she had on the beach only minutes ago. He looked for a second as if he would reach out and touch her, take her by the hand, but he didn't.

"Come on," He nodded towards a smaller passage. "Laddie's bedroom's up ahead."

()()()

The tour was short, because, as David had said, most of the rooms were empty. Apart from the main room, with the couches and Paul's boom box, there was Laddie's room, with the thin mattress he used to share with Star. There was a second room, a little farther off that chamber, that David sheepishly said they used when they "brought girls back" from the boardwalk. He looked towards Taylor as he said this, as she took in the cheap bed frame and the ratty velvet blanket covering the mattress. But she did not cower, not like he thought she would, and she didn't react to his comment - only motioned for them to move on to the next room. Like David told her, most of them were empty, but what he didn't mention was that these rooms where where the boys slept, upside down and hanging from the ceiling like bats. The way Taylor would likely sleep, when the time came. If, the time came.

"That's it," David shrugged. "Like I said, it used to be bigger, but…"

"The earth shifts." Taylor shrugged. That was something deeply unnatural to her - that even as the ground around them changed, the Lost Boys stayed the same. They had for years, maybe for decades, even. But she rid that thought of her head, and reached for David's hand.

He seemed taken back, at first, but was trying to hide it. His eyes, Taylor was noticing, were always the first thing to give him away, to betray him.

If David hadn't been so shocked, he would've seen anger and determination in Taylor's eyes. She hadn't shown it, but the thought of David in that second room, the one with the velvet blanket, with other girls, twisted her stomach up in knots. She felt jealousy in ways she hadn't before - it was more intense, deeper. She wanted to cry and scream and fuck at the same time, and so she chose the last option.

They moved quickly, anxiously, as if everything from the past three days had been leading up to this. Maybe it was. Instead of thinking about the consequences that would come with sleeping with a vampire, Taylor pushed David backwards onto the bed. She tore at his clothes as he pulled at hers, causing a total entanglement of limbs and fabric and, at last, tongues. He tasted like iron, and Taylor knew why, but it didn't disgust her like she'd assumed it would. It felt right, his mouth on hers, his hand on her back, pulling her naked chest closer against him.

It was hard to pull away, but they couldn't move forward without one of them doing it, and Taylor was already on top. She rose up from his lap, onto her knees, and pulled her panties down. David looked at her, a hunger in his eyes that she hadn't seen before.

"You're so fucking hot," He muttered breathlessly, and Taylor laughed.

"That's the closest to a compliment I'm getting, huh?" Taylor grinned at him, letting him know she was only teasing, as she yanked his boxers part of the way down his pale legs, and lowered herself onto him.

Fucking her felt like leaving his body. All the sensations were there, but they were heightened, and he felt both weightless and trapped at the same time. But trapped, that was an interesting word, because he also never wanted to leave from underneath of her - unless, of course, it was to get on top of her.

They laid there, afterwards, but did not touch each other. David wasn't one to cuddle, and Taylor was satisfied enough with just sex. But the space between them crackled with electricity, and with a desire that wasn't yet satiated.

"I need to go back, David." She sighed, and David noted that she had called it home. "The Fairlane's at the boardwalk."

"The others will be back soon." David said, his eyes wandering to the opening of the cavern. What would Michael think, he wondered, if he walked in and saw his sister like this? Would he even care?

"I should go before then," It was partially a question, but Taylor hadn't asked it like one. The others would know, David knew, that something had happened between them, but it was likely they wouldn't be able to put their finger on what exactly.

"Yeah, you should go." David agreed, watching as Taylor quickly dressed and moved towards the cave's entrance.

David did not offer to walk her home, and she didn't expect him to. The moon was low in the sky now, and Taylor left the cave on her own.


	17. Chapter 17

_"You lead me to your doorstep,_

_But you keep me locked outside."_

_\- Use Me, Goo Goo Dolls_

()()()

Taylor was not a virgin. She hadn't been with many men, but she was a modern woman, one of the twentieth century, who fucked who she wanted when she wanted them. As a result, she was no stranger to the so-called "walk of shame," to hurrying back to her house, in the same clothes as the night before, hoping to get back in time to squeeze in a shower before work.

But this felt different. She hadn't wanted to get out of that bed. She wanted to reach over, to touch David, and spend the day in that cave with him. If it hadn't been for the threat of others coming - of her brother possibly catching them - she might not have gotten up at all. There was something about David that drew her to him. No matter how much she told herself to stay away, she just kept finding herself coming back.

Taylor was not the only one on the boardwalk this morning, rushing back to cars that had been left to sit empty overnight. A few feet away from her was what Michael had referred to as a 'surf nazi,' rushing back to a beat-up VW with a board strapped to the top. He waved a hand in acknowledgment, which was both awkward and comforting. It pulled her out of her thoughts, back to reality.

She peeked at her Swatch watch. The walk had taken longer than she thought, and she only had an hour before she had to be at Sherli's. Cursing, she slammed the door of the Fairlane a little too harshly, before rushing off towards Max's house, hoping to get in a shower.

()()()

Today was even worse than the day before, and her exhaustion was coming close to overcoming her. Taylor felt more like a zombie than a hair stylist, going through the motions without really feeling much of anything. She was lucky she hadn't messed anything up, and Sherli had noticed.

Lunch rolled around again, and again Sherli offered a sandwich and a coffee from the bar next door.

"Although, in your condition, I might lay off the coffee for a little while." Sherli patted her hand, giving her a small consolation smile. "Maybe switch to decaf, if you like the taste?"

Taylor sputtered.

"Why would I switch to decaf?" She rubbed at tired eyes for a moment, and then it suddenly clicked for her. "I'm not pregnant, Sherli."

"But, you're…" Sherli shrugged. "Sorry hon, you had all the signs. You're going green at the edges and you're half asleep."

Before Taylor could respond, Sherli saved her from further embarrassment and left the shop, presumably to get the lunch they talked about. When she returned, she wordlessly slid a large coffee across the table in the office to Taylor. It was caffeinated, she could tell.

()()()

"Tonight," Taylor told herself, hurrying across the parking lot to the Fairlane. She was practically dead on her feet. "Tonight, I'm going to sleep like a baby."

But the same thing happened as the night before. The sun fell, the moon rose, and she found herself waking up, filling with energy as the sun fell beneath the ocean's waves.

There was traffic, cars going towards the beach for Friday night, and it took longer to get back to Max's house than she anticipated. By the time she pulled into the driveway and maneuvered her car between the twin rows of motorcycles, she was bouncing with energy and excitement. She could stay up just a little longer, she told herself.

She let her excitement get the best of her, the eagerness to get changed and go down to the beach for the evening, and she didn't think about what might be waiting for her once she got inside the house. She didn't think about David, and what he might say to her. Or worse, that he might not say anything at all.

Her mother and Max were in the kitchen when she entered, dropping the Fairlane's keys on the counter. They were bent over the counter, their faces hovering above a plate of raw steak. Max gave her a nod, meaty blood dripping from his mouth, but Lucy continued to reach for the steak without looking up at her daughter. She shoved the whole of it into her mouth, chomping down on it with sharp canines.

Taylor shivered.

"I don't know why they eat like that," Sam shrugged. "Michael says it doesn't even do anything for them. They still have to get regular human blood anyways."

"It could be worse. At least they don't eat their victims on the kitchen counter." Taylor shrugged, making her way towards what she assumed was the liquor cabinet. "Do you want to get drunk tonight, Sammy?"

Sam balked at her for a moment. "I - I never - "

Of course, Sam had never gotten drunk. Who would he have drank with, anyways? He didn't have friends in Phoenix, and he didn't seem to have them here. But, then again, neither did Taylor.

"C'mon," She urged him. "We'll have a couple of shots here, and then maybe we'll go dancing, somewhere down by the boardwalk. I heard one of my clients talk about some saxophone player down there, and they said he's someone you have to see!"

Although Sam heard Taylor's words, he also heard a desperation in her voice. Taylor wanted to have fun, and, for the first time since she arrived, she was looking to have it with her brother, acknowledging that he was growing up. But Sam also knew she was avoiding something, or maybe someone. Either way, Taylor was his sister, and he wanted to stand by her in a way that Michael had failed to.

He reached for the Maker's Mark she'd produced from the cabinet, pulling it out of her hand and taking a quick swig. His face contorted, and he fought not to spit it back out.

"Woah, okay kiddo." Taylor laughed, taking the bottle away. "Maybe we don't start your first night of drinking out with shots. Is there any Cola in this house?"


	18. Chapter 18

Taylor had made her way to the front of the crowd, feeling weightless as the people milled around her. Her curls were loose, and her makeup was smeared, but she still looked so beautiful, so natural, that she attracted glances from all of those around her. Her plain t-shirt had been tied up to reveal a tanned strip of stomach, and her shorts hung low on her hips. She was barefoot, despite the heat that the cement beneath her still held, and she kept a worn out pair of flip flops in her hand. A few feet behind her was Sam, his head bobbing to the music, moving in a way that he'd only before dared to do alone, when MTV was playing in the background. He was wearing one of his usual graphic shirts, unbuttoned deeper than usual in the summer heat.

It was September, but it sure didn't feel like it just yet. Not in Santa Carla.

Taylor could feel eyes on her, and she knew they weren't Sam's. It was the same feeling she'd gotten the night before, when she was with Laddie. The feel of David's eyes on her were so much more familiar now, and that knowledge was almost unsettling.

She turned to find him, made brave by the whiskey and cokes she had downed before leaving Max's house, followed by the cheap beer she'd gotten on the boardwalk. She searched the crowd for his dark duster, his spiky hair, or the glint of his silver earring. She wanted to call him to her, to make him dance - or, at the very least, make him watch her dance. She wanted a repeat of last night, only now she would be braver. She would touch him afterward.

It was a while before she found David. He was on the outskirts with the rest of the boys and her brother, standing next to their bikes. Michael's eyes were on her and Sam also, and there seemed to be a twinge of jealousy in them. _Good_, Taylor thought,_ serves him right for ditching Sam all summer. But then her eyes locked on something else._

David had a girl with him. He was guiding her towards his bikes, a hand on the small of her back, in the same place where he had touched Taylor the day before. The girl was beautiful, especially against the backdrop of the boardwalk lights and the boy's motorcycles. She was in a red shirt and bright cutoffs, giving the impression of some sort of Americana painting. Taylor felt, for the first time in a long time, that she didn't matter - that she could not compete.

Sam reached out for her, his mind registering the scene in front of them a second later than she did. His emotions were raging, intensified by the alcohol, and they were mixed, uncertain. David needed to feed, Sam knew that. But still, taking a pretty girl back to the cave felt like an outright betrayal, and Sam's first loyalty was, and is always, to his sister.

"What the fuck." Taylor scoffed, biting her lip. David did not turn to look at her, though he must've felt the daggers she was glaring into his backside, as he helped the tanned brunette onto his bike.

"I'm going to talk to him," Sam huffed, standing up a bit taller, puffing himself out to seem more intimidating.

"Sam, don't - " She said, because it shouldn't have mattered to her what David did. They had sex, that was all — and yet it didn't feel like that was all that had happened between them. Her words were fruitless, however, and Sam, fueled by alcohol and anger, marched towards the Lost Boys.

Taylor ran towards him, her arm outstretched, trying to pull him back. She knew she'd already been spotted, but she didn't want to make a scene.

"Sam!" She yelled out his name, but he moved quickly, and was already standing next to the bikes.

Michael stood in front of his little brother, between him and David.

"What's the problem, Sammy?" He grinned. "Something wrong?"

Sam swallowed, feeling his anger congeal in the back of his throat for a moment. Michael took advantage of the moment, and continued speaking.

"Don't worry about David, seriously. He's just hungry; we do need to feed, you know." Michael shrugged, ruffling Sam's hair as if he were still eight years old. "Besides, you and Taylor were just having so much fun together. Why don't you go back to that?"

Michael moved to the side, knowing he had won, and Sam caught a glimpse of David's eyes — dark as always, but possibly apologetic — as he turned the bike and headed off towards the darkest end of the beach.

The other boys were still there though, and they were the ones to see Taylor break down.

()()()

"I'm sorry," She apologized again, her eyes moving from face to face. "I don't know what's going on with my emotions lately. I'm so sensitive, and the alcohol isn't helping."

The boys — Paul, Marko, and Dwayne — smiled at her kindly. Their leader may have taken off into the night, but they could all still feel his discontent, his anger at what he'd done to Taylor. But really, they figured, what had he done to Taylor? Despite what it looked like, all the boys knew that this girl, whatever her name was, would be a meal and nothing more. Some part of Taylor must've understood that too, and if she hadn't yet, then surely she would soon.

"Would you like us to take you home?" Dwayne offered, looking at his brothers. "You can ride with me, Paul can take your car."

Taylor nodded, but then turned. "What about Sam?"

After Taylor had begun to cry, Michael took his bike and set off into the night, a burst of anger and frustration. Sam had taken off after him, but by then Taylor's tears were rolling too quickly for her to notice her brothers take off into the night.

"He'll find his way," Paul shrugged.

"And we'll keep our eyes out for him, while we can." Dwayne added, hoping to appease her. "Just let us take you home, Taylor. You're our sister now."

Numb and not quite sure why, Taylor nodded. Dwayne reached out a hand and she took it, settling herself onto the back of his bike. She laid her head against his jacket, and tried not to stain the leather with her tears.

()()()

David's anger had caused him to go into a bit of a frenzy, hardly waiting until they got to the cave before he began to tear at his victim — Tricia, Teresa, what was her name? He sunk his teeth into her vocal cords first so that she wouldn't scream, and then began to feed. She tasted too sweet, and she didn't settle well on his stomach.

"You're in trouble, David." Michael said, suddenly appearing in the cave's entrance, his sleeves rolled to his elbows like he was expecting to get his hands dirty. David could feel the anger rolling off of him.

"Oh no," David muttered sarcastically, not bothering to wipe the fresh blood from his mouth. "Whatever did I do now?"

"I don't know what you did to her, but Taylor's home crying. About you."

David faltered, if only for a moment, and then turned to Michael.

"Why do you care?"

"She's still my sister, David."

"She's a sister to all of us now, Michael." David looked towards the wine bottle next to the couch, the same one that had graced the dining room table of Max and Lucy's house only a few nights before. "It's only a matter of time, Michael, and then she'll understand. I have to feed."

"But you didn't have to be so obvious about it." Michael shook his head. "You wanted to hurt her."

"What's wrong with stirring up a little jealousy, Mikey? Star might've benefited from a bit of competition. Maybe she'd have stuck around longer that way."

With a feral growl, Michael lunged at David.


	19. Chapter 19

Taylor woke up with a pounding headache, and an alarm clock that had definitely been ringing for a while. She was hungover, exhausted, and running late to work. She quickly dressed, pulling on whatever she could grab and throwing her hair up into what she hoped was an acceptable messy bun. She grabbed her make up bag, planning to touch up her face on the drive, and reversed out of the driveway at the speed of light.

Ten minutes til opening, she could totally do this.

Driving with her knee, she pulled down the vanity mirror and opened up her makeup bag. "Shit," She cursed, seeing that her face was still tearstained. Had she cried herself to sleep last night? Did exhaustion finally take her, or was she really too drunk to remember? Both situations were plausible, given how little sleep she was running on and how much whiskey she had consumed.

Quickly rubbing in foundation with her hands and whisking on mascara, she thought about David. Part of her wished he was laying out there on the beach, burning up in the summer sun, and the other half…well, prayed that he wasn't. Her emotions were tumultuous and complicated. Maybe she did have feelings for David, and that was what kept pulling her back to him. Or maybe it was the thrill of the chase, the thrill of knowing what he was and still getting to be with him.

As Taylor was putting on her lipstick, still driving with her knee, she caught the flash of red and blue lights in her rearview. Cursing, Taylor tossed her makeup into the passenger seat, hoping he wouldn't say anything about it. Either way, this would definitely make her late to work.

()()()

The officer was younger than she thought he'd be, and the golden tag on his chest read Officer Harlem. He was handsome, too, with rugged features that reminded her of some kind of cowboy. His hair was long, but not unruly, and he pushed away from his face before putting on his hat.

"Good morning, ma'am." He spoke with a drawl that made Taylor quiver. "You were kind of all over the road back there. License and registration?"

His tone was serious, but there was a light lilt in it that let Taylor know she could talk her way out of this one if she was willing to try. Shuffling the makeup out of the way, she pulled out her ID.

"Taylor Emerson, I'm new to town." She smiled at him. "This is my grandfather's car, he lets me use it for work."

"What do you do, Miss Emerson?" He asked, giving the registration a cursory glance, and taking a little longer look at her license. He was checking her birthday, she assumed.

"I work at Sherli's Salon. Licensed cosmetologist." She flashed him a smile. "And, as I'm sure you assumed, I'm running a bit late this morning."

Harlem handed her back her license and the car's registration, tipping back his hat so that he could look at her.

"Here's the thing, Taylor." He flashed her a half-smile. "I'm more than willing to overlook these infractions, on two conditions. You don't make it a habit, and…and you go out with me tonight."

There was a pause where, just for a split second, David crossed Taylor's mind. But she pushed it out of the way, thinking about him with the brunette last night.

"You've got yourself a deal, Officer Harlem."

"Please, call me Jamie."

()()()

Taylor came running into the house immediately after work, a whirl of giggles and shopping bags. Without acknowledging Sam, Michael, and David — who were sitting on the couch, metaphorically holding ice packs to their wounds — she made a beeline for her bedroom. Sam shook his head.

"She's got plans tonight," Michael sighed, sinking lower on the couch. This was the last time he'd pick a fight with one of his brothers, vampire or otherwise. In the middle of their brawl, Sam had entered into the cavern and threatened to stake them both if they didn't cut this out. David hadn't wanted to back down, at first, but eventually they had tired each other out.

From the kitchen, the phone rang.

"Boys!" Lucy called from the second level. "Can one of you get that? Max and I are…busy."

Michael and Sam collectively shuddered, and Taylor yelled down also.

"Please!" She hollered. "It might be for me."

Without missing a beat, David rose from the couch and moved towards the phone.

"Hello?" He sighed dramatically into the receiver.

"Hi, is Taylor there?" The voice on the other end of the line was distinctly male, and, with their sensitive hearing, Sam and Michael caught onto it as well. David gripped the receiver tighter.

"No," David said, then sighed, thinking better of it. "Can I take a message?"

"Tell her there's been a change of plans, I'm running half an hour late."

"Do you have a name?" He asked through gritted teeth.

"Just tell her I'll be late," The man on the other end of the line smiled. "She'll know who I am."


	20. Chapter 20

Taylor sat on the front porch in a white sundress, her hair curled into loose waves. She tapped her foot impatiently, her eyes trained on the drive. So far, it was empty. Taylor glanced at her watch. 8:15 — Jamie had either hit major traffic, or he was standing her up. Her guess was the second one. At least, she figured, she'd gotten out of that traffic ticket.

"What's wrong, Taylor?" Sam asked, coming to sit beside her on the porch ledge.

"I thought I had a date tonight," Taylor laughed. "I think I got stood up."

Sam bit his lip, wondering if this had anything to do with the phone call that was made earlier. The brothers may have made up with David, but there was still an uneasiness between them — if David continued to do this to Taylor, their truce wouldn't last long.

Laddie had apparently overheard them, and came out to the front porch as well.

"But I thought you liked David?" He said, sitting beside them. He plucked rocks up from the ground, loading them into his two-cent slingshot and flinging them towards the drive.

"I do like David," Taylor sputtered. "But we're just friends, Laddie."

David was inside the house, and Taylor knew he could hear her. She tried to keep the menace out of her voice, but it clearly wasn't working. Both Laddie and Sam gave her a pointed look.

Before there could be any further questions, a marked car pulled up the driveway quickly, 'Police' etched onto the side of it. Sam sucked in a breath, wondering what the Lost Boys had done now, and Taylor laughed at his reaction.

"Relax," She smiled. "That's my date."

The Lost Boys, including David, came out to the porch, stirred by the noise. Max and Lucy must not have been home, otherwise they would've been out there too. The four boys, Laddie, and her brothers stood behind her in a kind of semi-circle, intimidating her date, Taylor was sure. Still, Jamie got out of the police car with a self-assured wave, pushing his hair back and putting his cowboy hat on his head, like he had earlier that day.

"Sorry I'm late, Taylor." He smiled at her. "There was a case I had to wrap up, it was taking longer than anticipated."

Taylor tried not to roll her eyes — clearly, the police in Santa Carla weren't doing much police work at all, based off those Missing People posters she'd seen plastered all over the place. Officer Harlem was trying to impress her, and it wasn't working.

"A call would've been nice," Taylor shrugged, genuinely rolling her eyes this time. "I was beginning to think you couldn't find the house."

"This place is hard to miss," Jamie looked up at the home, letting out a low whistle. Then he turned to Taylor with confusion. "I left a message for you."

"I must not have gotten it," Taylor turned, pointedly looking at the faces of the boys behind her. "Boys, this is Officer Harlem."

"Actually, you all look familiar." He said, bravely coming up on the porch to stand beside her. "Sometimes I patrol the boardwalk in the evenings, any of you like to hang around there?"

David didn't want to give this guy any credit — not like he deserved it — but one thing was for sure, this guy had some serious balls on him. The boys glared harder, their eyes narrowing into small slits, as Taylor placed a hand on the uniformed officer's shoulder.

"What else is there to do in this town besides the boardwalk anyway, Jamie?" Taylor giggled in a lighthearted attempt to save the moment, to prevent the boys from unleashing their anger on the first date she'd had in a while. "Anyways, we should get going. I'll see you when I get back, boys."

Officer Harlem helped her into the car, opening the passenger door of the cruiser for her and extending a hand. She took it gratefully, but quickly. She wanted to get out of here before one of the boys made a meal of her date, but she also wanted David to get an eyeful, to make him jealous the same way he'd done with her the night before. He was playing a game she was just as good at.

Jamie slid in the seat beside her, immediately reversing down the driveway.

"You have a large family," He said momentarily. "They're, interesting."

Taylor swallowed, quick to change the subject.

"Where are we going for dinner?"

()()()

Jamie had been a good date. He'd taken her to a little bar in the downtown area, only a bit nicer than the one she worked next door to, and told her to pick whatever she liked from the menu. They ate, and then they had a couple of drinks. Both of them had more than enough by the time they decided to call it a night, but Jamie assured her that he never got pulled over in his cop car anyway.

The more she talked to him, the more she started to dislike him. He'd been a pawn to begin with — a date in exchange for less points on her license, and someone to make David jealous with. But he was quickly grating on her words, his cockiness only seeming insecure. She was happy the night was ending, and that he hadn't asked about a second date as he dropped her off.

Waving to him as he headed down the drive, Taylor moved to open the front door, but it was bolted. It wasn't too late, only a little after eleven, so it was likely the boys were still out, and maybe they'd locked up after they'd gone? She wasn't sure where Sam was, so she tried knocking for a moment, but no one came.

They hadn't even gotten a key made for her yet. Naively, she thought they wouldn't use locks, because vampires were a good enough security system by themselves. She could see the purpose of the deadbolt now, to protect them while they slept, but why was it locked in the middle of the night?

Sighing, Taylor moved towards the back of the house. Maybe the back or side door would be unlocked? She tried both, with no avail. It seemed that her only hope was the small window above the kitchen sink, which had been left open and unlocked. Taylor moved to it — it was low enough to the ground that she could climb to it, and, if she wiggled enough, she could fit. Groaning, she hoisted the window open a bit higher, and lifted herself onto the ledge, starting to work her way through.

With a clatter, she fell into the sink headfirst, her hand outstretched to catch herself. She fell off the counter and onto the harsh linoleum floor, bringing one or two glasses down with her. They shattered next to her, but thankfully not on her.

"Whew," Taylor breathed, taking a moment to smooth her dress and her hair.

"That was quite a show." Lucy stood in the corner, her eyes cold, clutching a glass full of red liquid — either blood or wine.

"Really?" Taylor sighed. "You couldn't have gotten the door for me? At least pulled me in through the window or something?"


	21. Chapter 21

"I don't know where your head has been lately, Taylor." Lucy shook her head, her tall frame looming over her daughter's. Taylor was still on the kitchen floor, propped up to her elbows, and surrounded by glass. The mother she had known would've fretted over her only daughter, rushing to clean up the broken glass and urging her not to move. Now, Lucy just didn't give a shit about anything that wasn't her, Max, or blood.

"What do you mean, Mom?"

"Fighting with David, putting ideas in Sam's head, bringing home a cop!" Lucy's eyes filled with anger. "What the hell are you thinking?"

"It was just a date," Taylor shrugged. "He let me out of a ticket if I went on a date with him, I didn't think it was a big deal."

"You didn't think it was a big deal to bring a boardwalk cop to our home, Taylor? I sent David and the others to clean up your little mess."

Taylor swallowed, hard. She hadn't liked Harlem, but she didn't want him torn apart either.

"That's not necessary," She shook her head. "Mom, you can't just kill everyone who - " "What else was I supposed to do, Taylor? When he sees the boys messing around on the boardwalk next time, he'll know where to find them. He'll know something is up."

"You're being paranoid," Taylor said, but something hovered in the back of her mind - maybe Lucy was right. Maybe Jamie would've seen the Lost Boys lure a tourist off the beach, and know exactly where to find them for questioning later on. Maybe Taylor would have gotten them into trouble.

"Do you ever think about anything other than yourself?" Lucy spat at her. "What about David, about the way he feels for you?"

"David doesn't feel anything for anyone but himself either," Taylor scoffed. He'd proved that last night, when he took that brunette back to the cave, and then again today, when he'd avoided her, refused to give her any explanation.

"Max told me the boys were fighting earlier today - David, Sam, and Michael. I wonder what about." Lucy mocked.

"I don't want David," Taylor shook her head, knowing it was a lie. Admitting her feelings towards David would be admitting defeat, and she would never be ready to do that.

Lucy's face fell, as if she hadn't calculated for that, and she rushed at her daughter. For a moment, just one, Taylor thought she meant to do her real harm. Vampirism had made her so harsh, cold, and selfish — it wouldn't be so out of character for her to kill her own daughter. Taylor jumped backwards, unknowingly launching herself onto sharp, splintered glass. She took a sharp intake of breath as an especially thin piece sliced its way into her arm, lodging itself there. Fresh, red blood trickled out.

Taylor swallowed harshly, looking at her mother's hungry eyes. But, instead of moving to drain her daughter, Lucy took a step away. For a moment, Taylor thought she was glimpsing a bit of motherly instinct left over from when Lucy was human, but then she saw what Lucy had sensed. The Lost Boys were slowly milling in behind him, obviously just getting back from the boardwalk. Paul's shirt was disheveled, and Dwayne had lipstick marks on his neck. Laddie had led the pack, however, and was now standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his eyes narrowed into hungry, feral slits.

"Laddie," Taylor started, worried the boy would dash across the room, using his little canines to slice her neck. She remembered what David had said on the beach — Laddie wasn't just any child, he was a dangerous one. And, somehow, the others hadn't registered the fresh blood yet.

Once they did, the room went silent. They were watching, eyes trained between predator and his prey, with David ready to intervene.

He reached an arm out and grasped Laddie's shoulder, yanking him away from the kitchen at breakneck speed.

"Laddie!" David yelled at him.

"It's okay," He shook his head, wrinkling up his nose. "David, she doesn't smell very good. Her blood doesn't smell right."

Taylor's heart sunk as she realized what it meant, as she watched her blood congeal with hungry eyes. She looked around the room finding shock on all faces but one — Lucy's. Her mother's eyes were full of happiness. "I'm glad we don't have to keep it a secret any longer, Taylor." Lucy reached out a hand. "You're one of us."

The color flooding from her face, Taylor ran to her room.

()()()

As Taylor ran, David could feel his heart - or, what was left of it - leave his body. If he'd doubted it before, he knew it now. She would reject what she was, and she would ultimately reject him. He'd end up no better than Michael, lost and lovesick over a girl who couldn't accept what she'd been turned into. It made him sick to think about.

Wordlessly, he looked over at his brothers for guidance, but they were shocked and motionless. They'd known even less than he did. They hadn't noticed Max and Lucy's bottle trick during "family dinner," and they didn't know that Taylor was unaware of what she was becoming. After a few moments, Laddie looked up at David.

"Are you gonna go after her?" He shrugged. "That's what the guys do in all the movies."

For the first time, David was thankful for the Lost Boy's little sidekick.

"Yes, go to her, David." Lucy grinned at him. The smile that had once been sickeningly warm and matronly was now filled with teeth unnaturally sharp and bright. "Be her knight in shining armor."

_Something has made you bitter,_ David wanted to tell his fake mother. _Something has broken you inside, and you're not right anymore. _But David knew he couldn't say those words to her, not unless he wanted to deal with Max afterwards. David wasn't scared of many things, but facing the wrath of his maker was one thing no vampire wanted to go about doing lightly. Instead of attacking Lucy, like he wanted to, David took Laddie's advice. He moved up the stairs, after Taylor, wondering if she would turn him away.


	22. Chapter 22

Taylor grunted in pain, her arm outstretched over the bathtub as reddish purple blood splattered the white linoleum tub liner. Even her blood, which should've been so familiar to her, wasn't what she remembered. It was darker now.

The cut itself wasn't deep, but the sliver of glass was longer and thinner than she'd expected. She let out a chuckle, thinking how she should be thankful that it wasn't a silver dish that had shattered. Glass didn't kill vampires — next to nothing killed vampires, in fact. Taylor wondered, if she let the glass just sit in her arm, would it eventually push its way out, rejected by her rotting body?

In hindsight, she should've seen the signs. The exhaustion during the daytime, the sudden energy she got at night. The sudden disappearance of her desire to eat, and the newfound hunger that sat low in her stomach, and was unfamiliar to her. Her sense of smell, her sensitivity, was on overdrive, and now her blood was different.

She was what the Lost Boys had called a halfling, because she hadn't fed yet, but she would soon. Now that she knew what she needed to feel full again, the hunger inside her was only calling louder.

Taylor cleared her head, focusing her thoughts instead on the task at hand. The glass piece might come out on its own, but she wasn't going to rely on that, and she she returned to pulling it out. It was wedged tightly, going in where her wrist and forearm connected and trailing its way almost up to her elbow. If she wasn't a vampire, Taylor thought, she'd likely be feeling more pain now. Either that, or she was in shock.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. "It's open," She sighed, knowing that whoever it was knew well enough that there were no locks on any doors in this house. Or, at least, in Taylor's room. Silently, she prayed it wasn't Lucy. That was the only face she couldn't bear to see right now — the woman who had birthed her, and then given her a new life, but a cursed one.

Thankfully, it wasn't Lucy. It was David.

His clear eyes were apologetic, and his head hung low.

"Do you need help, Taylor?" He gestured toward her arm, but she knew he was asking about much more than that.

For starters, though, she offered him her arm.

"I can't get it out." Taylor sighed. David handled her body gingerly, even more lightly and lovingly than he had that night in the cave. "It doesn't hurt that much, either. Is that a vampire thing?"

"Could be," David nodded. "We feel pain differently, more numbly than humans do. But, if you can't feel it at all, then that might be shock, honey."

His breath caught at the last word - honey - as if he'd never used it before. At least, Taylor noted, it was possible he hadn't used it in a very long time. Before she could speak about it, David looked up at her.

"It might be easier with a pair of tweezers."

Nodding, Taylor moved to her bedroom, rummaging through a few boxes with her good arm to pull out yet another makeup bag, slightly larger than the one currently resting on her bathroom vanity. From the bag, she produced a thin pair of precision tweezers. She brought them over to him.

"I don't…" David trailed off. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't," Taylor replied, although she knew it was a lie. He already had hurt her. He set to work on pulling the glass out. "Can I ask you a question, David?"

"Hm?" He said, determined not to break off the sliver in her arm.

"Why is my mother like that?" She sighed. "It's like the vampirism did something to her, brought out her bitterness and her ugliness from the divorce. She doesn't act like my mother anymore, not like I used to know her."

"When you're like us," David sighed, not wanting to say what they were. "Time passes differently, especially when you don't live with humans. Days feel like years, and years feel like days. Sometimes, being turned can bring out your worse traits, can make you into the type of person you tried so hard not to be, but who always sat underneath the facade you put on. Lucy was unhappy when she met Max, and then, when vampirism was offered to her, she thought it was a chance to be happy again. I think she feels like it's failed her."

"It doesn't seem like it," Taylor shook her head, gesturing towards herself slowly and carefully. "She's obviously really gung-ho about it, or she wouldn't have changed me."

"When you're angry — truly angry — you want others to suffer too. With Michael, though," David said, anticipating her next question. "His is different. A lot of his anger has to do with Star, with her rejection of him. He became a vampire for her, you know? He didn't know what he was doing, he was trying to show off, but he turned before your mom did."

David smiled cockily, holding up the tweezers to reveal the sliver of glass stuck between. He crushed it up in his hand, his palm remaining unscathed, and threw the dust away in the trash can. He placed the tweezers on the vanity, and turned to look at Taylor. She was avoiding his eyes.

"When I turn," She caught herself. "If I turn. Will I be like them? Bitter, and angry?"

"No," David said quickly, shaking his head. "It can bring out the ugly parts in you, but it can't take you over if you don't let it. It's like anything else, you just have to fight to be happy."

"Except with murder and bloodshed." Taylor cracked an insane smile.

"Yeah, there is a bit of murder and bloodshed involved." David smiled back at her.

()()()

David led her to bed that night, and it was she who begged him to stay.

"Please, I don't think I can be alone in this house anymore. I don't feel safe, not with her downstairs." Admitting that she was afraid of her mother was hard for Taylor, and David knew that. But, after their interaction in the kitchen, he understood.

After he and Taylor had left, he'd overheard Lucy yelling at Michael to clean the blood off the floor before it stained. It had made David's cold blood boil.

Although they'd been together before, they hadn't touched afterward, and David knew part of that was his fault. Instead of allowing it to continue, David pulled Taylor closer to him in the large bed, wrapping an arm around her thin frame and resting their foreheads against each other.

"I'm scared, David." She whispered. "I'm scared of what I'm becoming. I didn't think I could ever be like you."

_Like you._ David took a sharp intake of air.

"Do you think I'm a monster, Taylor?" He said, his eyes closed. He didn't want to look at her, to see her face, outlined in the moonlight, as she answered him. "After everything you've seen, between me and Laddie and the other boys, do you think we're monsters?"

For a few moments, there was silence in the room.

"I don't know," Taylor said. For a moment, David's heart fell, but then Taylor reached up and ran a hand over his cheek, and he felt alive again. "But I do know that whatever you are, I am. We're the same now, monsters or not."

David leaned down and kissed her, tasting her in a way that was different from a few nights ago. That had been about sex, about getting what they both wanted so badly. This was about something more than that.

It pained David to say the next words.

"There's another way, you know." He pulled away from her, his eyes scanning her face in the dark. "There's a way for you to not be like us."

He waited for her answer, knowing what she would say before she said it, and knowing that it would break his heart.

"Tell me."


	23. Chapter 23

_"You talk far too much for someone so unkind" - Leave a Trace, CHVRCHES_

* * *

As the night moved into morning, Taylor's head was heavy with the information David had given her. After their conversation, she'd pretended to fall asleep, and ignored the way he'd untangled his arms from her body as she "slept." He'd snuck out before dawn as well, earlier than he had the nights before.

He was as torn as she was, and he wanted to give her space to think through her next moves.

The dark sky was turning purple and blue, a tell-tale sign that the sun would peek over the horizon soon, and David sulked back to the cave. By telling her how to save herself, and save Sam, he'd damned the rest of them - his brothers included. Was her life worth it, he wondered? Was he willing to sacrifice the family he'd known for decades to save a girl he'd known for only a few weeks?

He couldn't have regrets now, he realized, for it was too late. He'd made his decision, and now Taylor would have to make hers.

()()()

So she could save her life, Taylor thought, and maybe even save Sam's, by killing Max. But, that would leave all the others - her old family and her new one - dead as well.

In these moments, she thought David would be the one on her mind, the one whose death she contemplated the most. Or maybe it should be Michael's. By doing this, she'd be trading one brother for another - killing Michael to save Sam, to save herself. Was it selfish, or selfless? Her mother would tell her one thing, but those innocent girls on the boardwalk the boys fed on every night, drunk on youth and discount wine, would probably say otherwise.

Truthfully though, it was Laddie who gave her pause. The same creature who'd looked at her last night with feral eyes and nearly threatened her life. If she hadn't been a halfling, he would've killed her - and that was both equally terrifying, and heartbreaking. Laddie was just a kid, and he deserved a life, even if he wasn't spending it alive.

Taylor's alarm blared at her a few moments later, startling her. But the sun outside was just so bright, and it seemed to cut through her curtains despite the dark fabric. Taylor did not want to go into work today.

She was tired and in her sundress from last night's date, which reeked of cigarettes and cheap beer. Yesterday's curls were starting to fall, and she found herself aching for more sleep. The sun's rising seemed to have an opposite effect on her; instead of waking her up, it lulled her into an untrusting sleep.

She couldn't feed though, she knew that. Maybe, she thought, she could balance it all - be a human by day and a vampire by night, try to do it all. Taylor knew she couldn't, but it was a nice thought, and a nice dream that followed her into a silent sleep.

()()()

When she woke up, hours later, the sun had disappeared and Sam was knocking incessantly on her door.

"You okay, Taylor?" He hollered. "You slept all day!"

_Shit._ Taylor moaned. She'd slept through work.

"I'm okay, just exhausted!" She sighed. There was no point in lying, Sam knew what she was.

"Well, there's a message for you on the machine." Sam said, his voice low in a way that told Taylor he'd already listened to it. That was the only cue she needed to know that the message was from Sherli.

Still in the white sundress, makeup smeared under her eyes, Taylor rushed downstairs and into the kitchen, unplugging the machine from the wall and bringing it up to her bedroom.

"I'll take the call upstairs," She huffed, hurrying past a confused and embarrassed Sam. He felt bad for her.

She waited until he moved away from her bedroom door to listen to the recording, already knowing that she'd fucked up the one good thing she had going for her in Santa Carla.

"Look kiddo, I took a chance on you. And I really, really like you, I do. But you've been slipping up lately - you haven't been nearly as focused, you've been sick, and now you're not showing up. You're a talented stylist, you don't need me to tell you that, and it's not that you're lacking work ethic…" Sherli's voice on the line dragged off for a moment, and then cleared her throat, refocusing her thoughts. "To be honest, something's off with you. I can sense it. There's something wrong, and I don't want to be involved with it. So I'm…I'm letting you go. I'm sorry Taylor, you don't deserve this, but whatever you're wrapped up in, I can't get me or the shop involved with. Anyways, if you need a recommendation or whatever, give them my number. I'll put in a good word for you at whatever shop you choose to go to."

The voice cut off, and Taylor realized Sherli hadn't even included an official goodbye. The tears started to flow slowly, then quickly, and then they stopped altogether.

"I have to stop being such a baby," She moaned aloud, wiping at her tearstained cheeks.

_You're a monster,_ she told herself. _So accept it. Pull it together and act like one_.

Taylor rose from her spot on the floor, gracelessly kicked the answering machine under her bed, and moved to take a bath.

()()()

The woman's hair was loose and wild, dark curls intertwined with honey blonde caramel. Her Poison t-shirt was cropped just slightly, and the raw hem met the beginning of her cut-offs in a way that seemed effortless. Her legs were long and tan, but seemed to glow ethereally white at the same time - a combination that was unnatural, but looked good on her. She stalked the boardwalk without fear, attracting the wandering eyes of bored family men and surf nazis alike. The latter group, however, were the quickest to make a move.

The first to walk over to her was shorter and stockier than she would've liked, but his body was still covered in the type of lean muscles that were distinctive to those who had spent most of their lives in the water.

"What's your name, beautiful?" He asked her, looking her up and down like she was an animal at auction. His use of the last word - _beautiful_ \- reminded her of John, or Ken, or whatever his real name had been.

"Trina," Taylor smiled, not missing a beat. Her teeth were long, pointed, and sharp. "And you are?"

"Adam." He smiled at her. "Want to check out a bonfire under the boardwalk? I heard they have some beer."

"Sure," She nodded, letting him lead her away from the lights and the crowds, letting him think he was in charge.

When Adam reached for Taylor's hand, she let him take it, but instead of allowing him to guide her towards the burning light in the distance, she pulled him further away from it.

He hadn't even asked where they were going, just took the opportunity to kiss her forcefully and grab at her denim-clad butt. Rolling her eyes, Taylor bit just as abruptly into his pulsing neck.

She didn't feel bad for this one; he'd made it obvious enough that he wouldn't be missed.


	24. Chapter 24

Feeding felt so good, like a hunger she'd been ignoring for years and years had finally been satiated. Maybe, she thought briefly, the thirst for human blood had been present for generations, all the way back to Elizabeth Bathory, and they'd merely been repressing it all this time.

Taylor had made a decision by making none at all. By simply giving in to her instincts, to her hunger and desire to feed, she'd eliminated the only options she had. It was both devastating, and freeing. While she no longer carried the weight of her family's future, she could never identify as a vegetarian again either.

Once the euphoria was gone, and her adrenaline had stopped pumping through her empty veins, Taylor could feel the difference. Everything she'd felt before was only heightened now - her senses, her thoughts, her energy. No wonder Laddie was a ball of chaos, if he had this much energy pumping through his system after he fed.

Unsurprisingly, her first thought when she came to was about David. Surprisingly, her second was about Sam.

How would David react, knowing that she'd made this decision, one that would link them permanently? And Sam…she'd left him all alone now. Of course, she'd never actually leave him - they'd have to tear her apart from her baby brother with their bare hands - but now he was the only human in a house of vampires. A house of monsters.

Taylor shuddered, understanding now that her decision was both terrifying and freeing. There would be no more expectations to conform to, no more pressure to be someone or to do something. Taylor's life was now a blank slate, and there was nothing but time ahead of her. On the other hand, the girl who couldn't stand steak was now a killer.

Taylor placed a hand on her hip, exasperated, only to pull it away and see it covered in blood.

"Shit," She sighed. She'd made a real mess of this one.

While her clothes were a deep red, Adam's - or whatever his name was - weren't nearly as bad. His tee looked like he'd taken a bit of a tumble down one of the dunes, but it wasn't nearly as bad as her ruined Poison shirt. With a brief glance around her, Taylor stripped off her tee and replaced it with Adam's. It was big on her but not too much so - he'd been short, and the white shirt grazed the middle of her cut offs.

Now, what to do with the body.

Momentarily, Taylor wondered if she should've asked David or Michael what to do in this situation, how to prepare for it. But it was too late now, and she found herself lugging a 200-pound teenager towards the shoreline in the middle of the night. Thankfully, the boardwalk was closing up now, its lights dimming and the music starting to fade. Adam's friend's bonfire was still glowing in the distance, but the cheers from partiers were growing quieter and fainter as well. She'd dispose of the body, and then she'd get out of here. Silently, she said a prayer to whatever God would listen that no one noticed the distinctive drag marks in the sand.

()()()

This time, Taylor didn't have to climb through the window. The front door was eerily opened a crack, and she pushed it hesitantly.

She knew what she must look like. Her hair was frizzed and salty from the beach air, her shoes and ankles were muddy and she was in a stranger's t shirt with the tiniest bit of blood on the collar. She looked like what she was - a vampire.

She could hear the clattering of forks and knives on silverware as soon as she got inside, her mother's distinctive cackle echoing throughout her ears. Another family dinner.

Taylor really didn't want to be there, especially looking like she was, and so she tried to silently sneak up the stairs, a difficult feat when you were squishing mud on the white carpets.

"We can hear you, Taylor." Lucy teased. Momentarily, Taylor could hear Max scold her.

"Please, come join us." He called a moment later.

Mumbling a string of curses, Taylor sucked in a breath and walked towards the dining room. If her family hadn't sensed her decision before, it was certainly confirmed then.

She stood in the doorway alone, a beacon of disarray, and met their eyes one by one. Most of the Lost Boys were indifferent, but Laddie had a distinctive look of excitement flash across his face. Michael was content, David was uneasy, and Max looked like he'd been handed a goddamn olympic medal. Sam's eyes were the hardest to meet - she'd expected so much disappointment, so much sadness - but instead she'd found understanding, sympathy. He wasn't happy, but he was willing to understand, and that was all she needed.

Lucy was a different entity altogether, and she looked at Taylor with a wide smirk on her face.

"I told you so," She muttered, taking a bit of her mostly-raw steak. "I told you it would come to this. And isn't it so fun - the killing, that is? The eating?"

Lucy chewed deliberately with her mouth open, allowing Taylor a full view of the animal flesh that sat on her tongue, mangled by her teeth.

"Oh, am I being rude? Would you like a bite?" Lucy stuck out her fork with a red piece of steak on the end, and, although it was far from appetizing, Taylor did not recoil for the first time in ten years. "No? So, what was he like, Taylor, the one you ate?"

"I put the body in the ocean." She attempted to say so evenly, to show she was unfazed. "I hope that's alright."

"You did good, Taylor." Michael said, acknowledging her comment before Lucy could take another jab. "I'm sure you did good."

"Yeah, you're a real natural." Lucy chuckled, pushing farther. "Did he taste good, baby girl? Sweet like ice cream, or salty like the ocean?"

"Shut up," Sam muttered, refusing to meet Lucy's eyes.

"Excuse me?" Lucy turned to look at her only remaining human son, her eyes dark and red with anger at having her authority questioned. She looked as if she would jump at him right then and there, and rip his throat clean out of his body.

For a second, fear flashed in Taylor's eyes, even if it was only David who saw this.

"Shut up." David echoed in a deeper growl, standing to move between Lucy and her son. Despite the situation, and Max's power over his spawn, David was the one Lost Boy that Lucy still had some fear of and, although she did not cower, she averted her eyes from his harsh gaze.

"You're not the hero in this story, you know, David?" She mocked, cutting another piece off of her steak.

David rolled his eyes, ignoring her comment as he sat down again. A few seats down, Sam swallowed harshly.

Taylor looked over at the man who'd offered her an out - a future without killing, without becoming a whole new creature - and nodded at him, a silent thank-you. For everything.

He looked up at her, glancing quickly around the table to confirm that everyone had refocused on their food, and mouthed a quick_ 'talk later.'_ Then, family dinner continued.


	25. Chapter 25

Breathlessly, Taylor shuddered.

"I killed someone." She looked at David, blurting the words out as if purging them would rid the taste of his blood from her mouth. "I ate him, David. I mean, who the hell does that?"

"A vampire, Taylor, that's who." He rolled his eyes at her, a habit that was occurring too frequently for her liking. "That's what you are."

His words were biting. They remained distant from each other, he stood at the doorway to her bedroom, and she had crumped onto her comforting bed the first chance she'd gotten. David had not moved to bridge the gap between them, and she wasn't sure how to feel about that. She wanted space, but at the same time, she craved the feeling of his touch.

"I gave you an out, Taylor." He shook his head. "If you didn't want this, why the hell didn't you take it?"

She couldn't explain to him that the out he'd given her was a double-edged sword. By revoking her halfling status, she'd be condemning her family to hell, or eternal damnation, or wherever vampires went once they died. She could be human, but she would lose him. And, despite their differences, she couldn't do that. But she didn't know how to say it, how to be so blunt about her feelings towards a man who couldn't even bring himself to cross the room and_ touch her,_ goddammit.

"I couldn't do that to Michael, and Laddie, and even to my mom." _And to you,_ she wanted to add, but she knew better of it. "They may not care about me, but they're my family whether I like it or not. Blood is blood."

Those words meant more to her now, now that she had fed from another human being. Blood meant even more when you could taste it, than when you could feel it pulsating through your veins.

Taylor had expected him to understand her choice, to respect it, but instead of moving to hold her as he had the night before, David simply scowled. And that anger, that emptiness, was what broke her.

"I thought you would be happy, David. I'm not killing you, I'm not killing your brothers. I thought you wanted this? I thought you wanted me. The other night - "

David cut her off abruptly with a short and deep-throated laugh. He'd given her a chance to make the expected choice, the right one, and she'd thrown it away just as quickly as it was given to her. Taylor was a girl who wanted to play in the darkness without getting her hands dirty, and she was finding that was no longer possible. Vampires needed to feed.

"I never want this. I never wanted any of this." He spat at her, his dark eyes gleaming in the moonlight trailing through the open curtains.

Taylor sunk lower into her bed as his dark combat boots stalked away, down the stairs and out the front door.

()()()

David was alone in the others had undoubtably sensed he and Taylor's fight, resulting in his rotten mood and their decision to sleep in the basement of Max's for the day. He sat in an abandoned wheelchair Paul had picked up off the boardwalk one night, a bottle of Whiskey in his lap that was only 1/3 of the way full. This was the only taste he'd seemed to retain from the years before he was turned, but its affect was slightly more mellowed now. Perhaps that was the vampirism, or maybe it was the fact that he'd been downing the same bottles for over a hundred years. Most of the time, it was the taste he craved more than the drunkenness, but tonight he needed both.

He'd pushed her away, again. He'd denied her, again. And why?

Lucy's words echoed in his head. '_You're not the hero in this story, you know, David?'_

He could not save Taylor; hell, ever since he'd met her, he'd only made things worse. He'd meant what he said - he hadn't asked for any of this, not for her, or for any of the bad things that had happened to her since their meeting. Weeks ago, she was happy, she was with her family, she was alive.

And now, now she was as bad off as he was. He took another long swig from the nearly-empty bottle.

()()()

Some miles away, Taylor's head was pressed deep into the pillow, and images of the red-shirt-and-blue-shorts Americana girl from a few nights before danced in her head. She had been right then - she'd never be able to compete with girls like that. Quite literally, they had what David needed: fresh blood.

And, now that she had been turned fully, she did not. He'd lost interest as her blood chilled and left her veins, as she became what he was.

But, if that was the case, then what was the other night? He'd held her and literally told her how to kill him, how to take back her life. Confused and exhausted, Taylor wiped at her tearstained face; she'd cried more here in Santa Carla over the past few months than she had when her parents announced their divorce.

Her body twitched anxiously - a warning that dawn was quickly approaching - and Taylor moved to shut the blackout curtains, taking extra precautions to be sure that she wouldn't burn up during the daytime. Although, everything being as it was, that wasn't a totally bad idea.

She snorted uncharacteristically as she marched back to her bed. She was good at a lot of things, but being sad wasn't one of them. When things didn't go her way, Taylor had always been quick to pick herself back up and start again - maybe that was what she needed to do now. She had to find way to press the reset button, to begin a clean slate.

But not right now, she knew. Right now, she had to get some sleep, or she'd be one cranky vampire in the morning. A subtle smile on her face, Taylor settled back into her bed, and thought about Phoenix.


	26. Chapter 26

**TW: Slight homophobic slurs and an attempted sexual assault. Both are very mild. **

()()()

The next night, as soon as the sun went down, Taylor jolted awake.

There would be no second thoughts, no chances to take this back. She was a vampire, but that didn't mean she had to be a Santa Carla vampire. She could leave here and start fresh, like she wanted. She'd even bring Sam with her, away from Michael's indifference and Lucy's insanity and Max's constant eyes. He seemed to like Santa Carla enough, but in a new town, she hoped, he would really blossom. This way, he could never become like her, she could protect him.

This was her middle ground, her escape and Sam's too. Iff she left soon enough she'd be able to clear the county line before the rest of her family was even awake.

Throwing most of her clothes and a couple of other belongings into a hefty duffle, Taylor zippered the bag and moved to wake Sam.

He was sleeping so soundly, so peacefully, that she almost rethought her whole plan. Momentarily, she thought about waiting just one more day or feeding before she left, anything to stall this moment - the one where she would have to make him choose between staying with this family, or leaving with her.

But she knew she couldn't delay or she'd become caught up in it again. Santa Carla had a way of sucking you in to a pattern, alluring you so that you never really had the chance to leave. This opportunity would be slim - Taylor could sense it - and she needed to make a move while she still could.

She shook her brother awake, and explained her plan.

Unsurprisingly, his decision was simple. He'd never really found a home here, and his sister - undead or not - was his whole life. Unlike the others, vampirism hadn't made her harder, at least not yet, and he was determined not to make that happen. Despite the blood, he wanted Taylor to stay the same as always, and that could not happen inside of Santa Carla.

"What about David?" Sam asked quietly.

As soon as the words were out, and his sister's silence followed, he thought better of it. But it was too late, and it had already been said.

"He regrets everything," Taylor said blankly but honestly, complete with a gentle shrug of her shoulder. She was numb, Sam knew, tired from thinking and crying all day, most likely.

Sam asked no more questions, and silently hoped that she wouldn't regret this.

Either way, he was her brother, not her judge.

()()()

Taylor drove faster than she normally would, pushing 80 or 90 in Grandpa's car down the open highway. She wanted to put as much distance as she could between this car and the rest of her family, especially given their apparent ability to fly. David might not come after her, but Lucy and Max would certainly have something to say about all this.

Sam did not seem as concerned. In the seat next to her, he bobbed along to Duran Duran on the stereo and didn't argue when she would switch it over to her Danzig cassette instead. The windows were down, blowing her hair wildly in the wind as they moved south down the coast.

Originally, they thought about Phoenix. They could return to Dad, and maybe to their old life there, but Taylor had let Sam make the final decision.

"Let's try something new," He had said, gesturing towards the highway that would lead them South instead of East.

And now here they were, fifty miles down the road, an empty can of Jolt between them.

"We need to stop for provisions soon!" Sam exclaimed, nearly yelling over the wind. "We're far enough away now, and they should just be waking up. Pick a 7/11, so I can get a Slurpee."

Taylor wouldn't deny him that. Her eyes scanned the exit signs, moving quickly past them.

"Thank you for coming with me, Sam." She said quietly, not totally sure if he'd heard it. But he reached for her hand, and squeezed it.

()()()

Moments later, they pulled into the parking lot of a dingy 7/11. The Fairlane didn't need gas just yet, but Taylor fueled up while she could.

"I'll go in," Sam volunteered. "Want anything?"

"Another?" Taylor held up the Jolt can. "Or a coffee, if they don't have it."

Caffeine didn't have nearly the same effect, but she liked the taste, and it's not as if it could harm her now anyway. Sam acknowledged her with a nod, and entered the dimly-lit store.

Taylor was a pretty girl, outside alone in a gas station parking lot way past dark. She should've been the venerable one. But she wasn't.

Sam was taking too long, and she tapped her foot. The store was otherwise empty, and a snack run shouldn't have taken more than 5 minutes. She could see him at the checkout counter inside the store, but the blinds were mostly down, and she couldn't make out much more than that.

"C'mon Sam," She muttered, looking around her. There were too many trees around here, and not enough people. If the others had woken up and come looking, she and Sam would be sitting ducks, especially if they had figured out what direction they'd gone in.

They needed to get back on the road.

Taylor locked the doors to the Fairlane and moved towards the store hurriedly, wondering if Sam had run out of money, or if he was asking about a bathroom key. She wished either was true.

"I don't sell to fucking twinks, kid." The cashier said, reaching a hand across the counter and shoving the pile of snacks Sam had placed there onto the floor. His red Slurpee splattered onto the tile.

"Excuse me?" Taylor blurted out before her brother had a chance to. She'd seen him go red and, like any big sister, rushed to his defense. She looked the cashier up and down, stepping in front of her brother. "You're one to talk."

The man's face turned a deep red, and he sputtered in front of her, reaching across the counter to grab at her.

"I'll show you what a man I am."

He attempted to pull Taylor's thin body across the counter, her shirt riding up and the sweat of her stomach making her skid uncomfortable as he yanked at her, a desperate attempt to remove it from her body.

Taylor did not scream. She glanced back at Sam, her eyes holding a silent message for him to run, and then she bit. If the man wanted a taste of her so badly, she was going to take something from him first.

But she ended up taking all of him, her body stretched across the counter as she tore angrily at his neck, slurping down all the blood she could get.

Behind her, two pairs of eyes watched on.

"This is a lot to stomach," Sam swallowed, feeling more than a little queasy, but he was unable to tear his eyes from his sister's hungry form.

"Get out of here," David urged, pushing him towards the door. Michael waited outside, sent by Lucy to collect his siblings. She couldn't have been bothered to come herself.

Sam tried to steal one last look at his sister, but Michael turned him away from the store with a cold hand on his shoulder. Together, they walked towards the Fairlane.

()()()

David looked at the carnage around them, the blood splattering the walls and the corpse laying lifelessly between them. He hadn't caused this directly, he knew, but the events of the past month or so had all come together to create this disaster.

Taylor stood at the center of it all, her hair wild and her clothes ruined, redish-brown blood trailing down her chin in a way that was both animalistic and seductive. It made him want to cry and kiss her at the same time.

She looked up at him. "I hoped you wouldn't come."

"That's a lie," He growled, discontent. "We both know it."

She didn't correct him, only watched silently as his eyes followed her path of destruction.

"I'd take it all back, if I could." David sighed. "I'd undo all of it and put you right back in that house in Phoenix, where you were safe and you'd never heard my name."

His self-hatred was evident now, though it had remained hidden deep under his initial cockiness. He hated what he was, hated that he had played a part in turning her into what she was as well. But Taylor would have none of his self-pity. She crossed the room and stood directly in front of him, so close that their chests just barely brushed. She looked up at his clear blue eyes and reached a hand out, touching his chest as she spoke.

"It's too late now. We can't take it back."

She was right, he knew. The wine had already been drunk, and the blood had already been spilt. Taylor was what she was. She had accepted it, and now David needed to as well.

She moved closer to him, standing on her tip toes and reaching her face closer to his, stopping only a breath away from his lips.

"You need to play the hand you're dealt." She meant it to him as much as she did to herself. She was a vampire, they all were, and Sam would likely become one too. As hard as she tried, there was no escaping this, or running around outside of her fate.

Moving another half-inch forward, Taylor planted her lips on his, her hands coming up to reach around to the back of David's head, running her red fingernails through his hair. David moaned in response, and it reverberated around her mouth in a way that made her smile. Instinctively, his hands curled almost possessively around her waist, pulling her hips flush against his.

"This is what you want?" He pulled back from her momentarily, gesturing towards the rest of the gas station.

"I want you," She shrugged. "And I can handle whatever comes with it."

This, at least, was not a lie. It was the closest thing she'd gotten to honesty from any vampire in Santa Carla.

They left the store together, after checking the CCTV cameras and dragging the body out into the woods. David could sense that the victim wouldn't exactly be missed, and someone else could clean up the rest of Taylor's mess.

He led her to Michael's motorcycle. David had flown down, keeping an eye out for Taylor's Fairlane on the highways, while Michael had made good enough time on his bike.

"The Fairlane," Taylor said questioningly, nodding towards the spot next to the single gas pump where it was parked minutes before.

"Michael took it home, Sam too." David said, his voice faltering momentarily at the word home. But Taylor didn't reject it, and she didn't reject him.

"Take me there," She swallowed hard, slightly nervous about facing Max and Lucy's wrath upon her return. At least, she figured, not much could hurt her now.

She climbed onto her brother's bike, wrapping her arms firmly around David's waist and closing her eyes, breathing him in.

"You ready?" He yelled back to her, over the rumble of the bike.

"Always," She grinned, opening her eyes to the night highway as he zoomed down the road.


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N** \- I can't thank this community enough for everything! This will be my last chapter for this story, and it's likely it'll be pretty similar to the epilogue of No Rest For the Wicked, because that epilogue was always my personal favorite part. Thank you for supporting me while I revisited this story. I feel like my writing has grown so much since 2013, and I hope you all agree. Thanks for sticking around, reading and reviewing, and leaving such kind words! Hopefully I'll see you guys again soon. xx.

()()()

Sarah sat outside the gas station, her converse-clad feet kicked out in front of her. Her ride had just left; she was hungry and waiting for another one. She'd wanted to feed off this last man, but she'd seen a picture of his kid in his wallet as he fumbled with it, taking out money to pay for the gas. The child reminded her of Laddie, and she knew that she couldn't take away a father.

It was funny, how often the Lost Boys were on her mind now. They hadn't been at first, when she'd left them fifteen years ago, or maybe twenty now. She'd hated Michael for his weakness, his inability to save her and Laddie before they had succumbed to their hunger. She'd left filled with anger at every vampire in Santa Carla, and instead of finding solace on her own, she found nothing. Loneliness, a life filled with budget hotel rooms and truck drivers and other nomads.

Sometimes, when it got really bad, she considered returning home with her tail tucked. But she was too proud for that, really, and she wasn't even sure if they would still be in the same place by now. It was funny how things worked out though, that they had come to her.

Marko was the first to arrive, and the first she recognized.

His mullet was gone, but his curls were undeniable. He still had the same bike. He climbed off of it, and walked past Sarah into the gas station as if he hadn't seen her at all.

He wouldn't recognize her, she realized then; none of them would. Not with her hair cropped short and unwashed, her clothes dirty and her eyeliner smudged. Without the shimmery skirts and the big earrings, he didn't even glance at her - because Star was a memory, and Sarah was a person. A person that none of the Lost Boys knew anymore.

The familiar hum of motorcycles came closer, and the rest of the boys arrived soon after.

They parked across the lot from her, as Marko had, and arrived in a cluster. Dwayne came first, his hair shorter than before but still long, and he was still shirtless underneath a dark leather jacket. He was the first, and the only, to actually look at Sarah, to see her. Recognition flooded his face, and he acknowledged her presence with a quick, abrupt nod. Then he turned away, tending to his bike, ignoring her.

Paul came next, the same as before - long hair, a wild smile, and eyes that shone brightly even in the moonlight.

Michael was behind Paul, and Sarah felt an unfamiliar tugging at her heartstrings, something that she hadn't felt in a long time. He seemed happy though, and she found that her eyes couldn't hover over him for a long time before she started to feel a need to cry. Beside him was a tall blonde - a preppy, pretty boy - who looked familiar although she couldn't quite place him. He must've been Michael's brother, logic told her, only older now.

So Max had gotten his family. Good for him. Sarah had gotten nothing.

David was the last to arrive. His hair was cropped shorter now, but still a white-blonde. On the back of his bike was a girl, dark hair long and shiny, her tanned legs glimmering in the moonlight. Attached to her was Laddie.

Once David had stopped the bike, Laddie was the first off. She hoped that, out of anyone, he would be the one who recognized her, who said her name, her old name - Star. But he seemed distracted with the new girl, launching himself into her arms the first chance he got, something he'd never done with Star.

Laddie was the only one who remained totally unchanged - with the same unruly hair, and the same military jacket Sarah had found him in all those years ago.

She had brought him to David one night, when she'd seen him cold and abandoned and sick on the streets. If he changed Laddie, she told him, she would care for the child like her own son. She wished that had been the truth, that she'd been able to do it.

She said a silent thank you to the new girl, if only for that reason. She'd been able to care for Laddie when Sarah never could, to fill the shoes she'd left behind as his surrogate mother.

The group talked quietly for a moment, and Sarah tried to watch them without feeling like she was staring. Being a predator worked in her favor, most likely. Moments later, the group walked into the gas station together. Michael was only a foot away from her, yet he did not give her a second glance.

The girl was the last to enter, holding hands with Laddie, her dark curls shaking as she walked. She had a striking resemblance to Michael, up close, and momentarily Sarah wondered if she was the sister he sometimes talked about.

The girl erupted in quiet laughter at something Laddie had said, and David turned around for a moment.

_Notice me,_ Sarah willed silently, but his eyes were locked on the girl. He smiled at her.

In all her years with the boys, she'd seen David smile only twice - when he was feeding, and when he was fucking. This girl must've been something special, whoever she was. Sarah hoped that David deserved her, because David didn't deserve many good things.

The group moved out of her sight, and a black sedan pulled up. Probably the only car she'd see for the rest of the night, as it was already creeping towards morning. With one more glance at the gas station window, Sarah stood, and stomped out her cigarette. She walked towards the car.

"Going South?" She smiled lightly, her voice soft. The man nodded, reaching across to open up the passenger door.

"What's your name?" He asked her, putting a hand on her knee as he pulled out of the parking lot. The car was warm inside, expensive leather interior and a new CD player.

"Sta-Sarah," She corrected quickly, leaning forward and craning her neck to glance out the back window as he continued to speak to her, to ask her questions.

The man drove quickly, and they must've been miles from the gas station by then, but she swore she could hear the sound of motorcycles and laughter fading into the night.

**The End. **


End file.
